Editor/Oil Reporter/Journalist

Title : Editor/Oil Reporter

Location : Houston TX USA 77002

Duration : 1 year contract 

Pay :  $28/hr on W2 

Essential Skills:
 Experience of relevant reporting or analytical experience (new graduates will be considered
with appropriate skills training)
 Strong mathematical skills
 Strong writing skills
 Ability to perform well with tight deadlines

Accountabilities:
Assess markets: The market reporter in this position assesses the value of oil markets, accurately and fully in line with our rigorous and well-known methodology. The market reporter will survey market participants throughout the day; publish price updates through the day, especially all information that might be used in assessing value; run an intensive one-hour or so window period from at the end of the assessment day; demonstrate a thorough understanding of Platts' methodology; be rigorous when using mathematics and excel spreadsheets; demonstrate ability to do a full set of assessments without the aid of a spreadsheet; and ensure our methodology for market is up to date.

Write high-quality market commentaries:
The market reporter is responsible for writing commentaries associated with his or her assessments. The commentaries are intended to help our readers better understand what is happening in the market, and to better understand how we have arrived at our assessments. The reporter should file commentaries as news stories before midday if markets are volatile or unusually interesting; avoid repetitive and formulaic commentaries, where the same structures and phrases are used every day; closely monitor relevant inter-product and inter-region spreads; and ensure commentaries meet our editorial standards for writing and reporting.

Report news about the markets: The market reporter is responsible for reporting news and analysis relating to his or her market. The new should help our readers understand issues in the marketplace, whether they are traders, analysts, government regulators, working in the supply chain, or in another walk of life. Relevant stories include news about supply and demand developments, government data, new developments in regulations, trader movement news, general analysis of price trends, and other relevant topics. The market reporter should provide a good blend of standard news reporting—the news that needs to be done—with creative "enterprise" reporting that generates original reporting file a reasonable quantity of stories relevant to their markets – and we prize the quality and originality of news reports over sheer quantity alone; regularly file stories before lunchtime; work closely with the news desk, the Managing Editor, and others to identify and write good news stories about issues the markets; demonstrate a strong sense of what news our readers want to see, and be a vocal contributor to regular news meetings with the team.

Engage with the industry: The market reporter is responsible for engaging with market sources around the region, including those who are not regularly in the Market-on-Close assessment process. Excellent engagement helps ensure we are close to market developments, methodology development is strong, story writing is creative, and that channels of communication are established and open with market sources. The market reporter should find and nurture new market sources; maintain a good relationship with existing sources; ensure source lists are up to date and stored on the network in line with our Editorial Standard for source maintenance; send summaries of meetings to manager and immediate colleagues; avoid an over-reliance on Instant Messaging, try to talk to each source at least once a week, and meet with different sources for lunch about once a week; handle complaints in line with Editorial Standard for complaints management.

Other Required Accountabilities:
Meet deadlines: In the office or online by 8:30 am Central time (USA) time; Publish assessments by approx. 5 pm, but will vary; Publish commentaries times will vary as well.