Do you remember, Josef & André?

André and I have been working together now for 13 years as gas traders – or Gas Portfolio Managers – to give us our official title. I trained as a mechanical engineer and in 1993 started working for VEW AG (then known as: Vereinigte Elektrizitätswerke Westfalen) in the power plant technology department. That company was then merged with RWE in the year 2000. At that time I began working in the field of fuel sourcing with RWE Power, and in 2007 all gas activities were pooled into one company called RWE Gas Midstream. And that was the point at which André came along to boost our team as a fresh pair of hands. Back then, all work was organised into ‘book structures’ and we were called the PGB – or Power Gas Book. That name has unofficially stuck with us until today. André, you take over now, before I keep rambling on…

[laughing] It’s all true! I have been with the company since 2002, starting back then with a holiday job. I even wrote the thesis for my business degree while working at the AG. Prior to that, I had done my banking apprenticeship, so I always worked in the currency risk area of the company. Then in 2007 the job with Josef came up, working as part of a team that combined trading, physics, power plant planning and other areas. That was so exciting for me and something I really wanted to do. So I decided of my own accord to go off and do ‘night school’ with Josef to try and pick up all the information I needed to do the job well. That is how we got to know each another so well over many, many years. We are the perfect complement to each other and I reckon about 99 percent of the time we reach the same conclusions.

I really enjoy being a teacher [grins].

There is no such thing for us, and that is what really makes the job. We are responsible 24/7 for gas procurement. The power sellers (dispatchers) sometimes tell us at 15-minute intervals how much gas they require. We – i.e. Josef, Karsten Kämmerer and I – then check all the underlying conditions and try to ensure a constant and optimal supply of gas to the power plants. The exciting element of the job is that every week, personnel shortages and many other eventualities will have an effect on the power price and we have to keep making decisions that will turn a profit.

It is the constant variety that keeps us motivated. I couldn’t do a job that always consists of the same processes, day after day. We both thrive on new challenges.

Our Gas Management System (GMS) is a great example, as it gives us remote control over the power plant valves. We spent about two years working on that tool, with the aim of putting gas supplies on a more market-driven footing. Prior to that we had to give instructions to power plant staff every half hour to optimise energy usage, until our colleagues told us they didn’t have time to keep turning the gas knobs on and off for us. We managed to make a plausible case for the added value of automating those regular adjustments and we now have a fully automated system, which means our on-site colleagues no longer have to intervene. That saves manpower, time and money because monitoring of the system is now handled by our on-call team.

We sit on the trading floor along with a lot of other colleagues. Over the years we have made continual adjustments to the way we work, developing new ideas and taking a proactive approach to things. Stefan Judisch seemed to notice that and always made a habit of stopping at our desk whenever he did a trading floor tour. One day he tapped me on the shoulder and said: “Ah yes, Josef Tenhaven – the man who went from gas buyer to gamma trader.” That was when it hit me just how much had changed over the years. We had turned a supposedly boring task into a hot trading job.

We’ve actually never had any hassles, have we?

Let’s hope it stays that way! It comes down to tolerance, André [grins].

In all the years I have known Josef, I can count on him to be reliable and stick to his word. He is an absolute expert who will gladly go the extra mile to further the success of the team. We really get along well on a business and personal level.

For any close collaboration to work, a number of factors have to be right. There is no beating around the bush for us, we tell each other everything and balance each other out well – so well, in fact, that I don’t ever want to go back to having my own individual office.