Distillates Trading Director

Overview

An exciting career awaits you. At MPC, we’re committed to being a great place to work – welcoming new ideas, encouraging diverse perspectives, developing our people, and fostering a collaborative team environment.

Position Summary

Leads the global distillates trading portfolio across domestic and international markets. Responsible for optimizing margin through arbitrage strategies, structured term deals, and integration across logistics, planning, and trading execution. The Head of Distillates has four core objectives:

• Leads strategy and trading for diesel and jet fuel across North America and international markets.
• Structures spot/term agreements and arbitrage strategies aligned with regional and global pricing.
• Coordinates with Refining, Logistics, Fuels Value Chains (FVC) and Value Chain Optimization (VCO) to ensure flow assurance and quality compliance, and owns desk-level performance through optimization and derivative hedging.

Key Responsibilities

Trading Strategy & Commercial Execution

• Set and own the global distillates trading strategy, allocating domestic and international diesel and jet desks based on margin, volatility and regional demand.
• Define and execute arbitrage strategies and term structure for each regional commodity desk.
• Support renewable diesel placement and LCFS/RIN strategy for diesel pools.
• Optimize crack spreads and basis trades across inland vs. coastal markets, balancing physical flow constraints.
• Structure and negotiate purchases and sales, aligning with refinery and terminal capabilities.
• Coordinate the use of derivatives (spreads, swaps, futures) to hedge regional exposures and protect margin.

Market Intelligence & Analytics

• Monitor regional price differentials, crack differentials (e.g., ULSD vs. crude), and seasonality for real-time decision support.
• Partner with Analytics/VCO/FVCs to embed market outlook into the planning cycle to improve decision making.
• Sponsor continuous enhancement of distillates quality-arb activities and analytics.
• Engage in performance management by assessing trading actuals vs. planning benchmarks and recalibrating strategy to hit margin and volume goals.
• Assist in tracking KPIs such as regional crack capture and desk-specific basis performance.

Asset Coordination & Product Specification Management

• Coordinate with Refining, Terminals, Scheduling and MPLX to align distillates flow plans, storage logistics and off-take scheduling.
• Manage quality/spec constraints (e.g., cetane, aromatics, cold flow) and regrade options.
• Oversee inventory placement to optimize trading around market structure.
• Ensure compliance with product specs, regulatory requirements and regional fuel mandates.

Risk, Compliance & Counter party Engagement

• Collaborate with Risk/Middle Office and the Finance function to design compliant hedging frameworks and approve term deals against credit limits.
• Define hedge objectives and risk limits.
• Partner with the Financial Trading desk for execution of broader financial portfolio trading and exposure management.
• Build and maintain relationships with major suppliers and end-users in distillates markets globally.
• Structure transactions to balance credit, counter party reliability, economics and regulatory compliance.
• Coordinate with Middle Office to ensure accurate P&L attribution and daily risk reporting.

Cross-Functional Interfaces

• Work closely with Origination, FVCs, VCO and cross-commodity trading teams to align term volumes, hedges and customer deliveries.
• Engage with company-wide support functions including Legal, Regulatory, Compliance, Contracts, Risk, IT and Credit.

Leadership & Capability Development

• Build and coach a high-performing global distillate trading team across multiple US offices, along with Singapore and London.
• Foster data-driven decision making, disciplined risk management and cross-desk collaboration.
• Identify and develop future desk leads and ensure robust succession planning.
• Foster development of employees interested in trading and commercial roles.

Core Competencies

• Commercial & Financial Acumen:
  Expert in understanding fundamental and financial drivers in the global distillate markets. Proficient in physical market and financial trading, along with structured deal negotiation.
• Adept in cross-commodity financial markets, including cracks and other inter-commodity spreads.
• Uses derivatives to hedge and monetize regional basis and quality arbitrage.
• Strategic Vision & Systems Thinking:
  Aligns regional desks to an integrated enterprise trading strategy and embeds trading insights into long-term margin capture plans.
• Operational Excellence & Supply Chain Expertise:
  Oversees inventory and product spec management within logistical constraints; collaborates with MPC functions to enable physical trade execution.
• Risk Management & Resilience:
  Allocates hedge limits, manages risk exposures, and ensures counter party compliance; oversees daily P&L attribution and exception management.
• Digital & Analytical Fluency:
  Expert understanding of supply & demand,…