WHAT IS ENERGY COMMERCE Energy Commerce is a broad based business degree that prepares students for careers directly and indirectly related to the energy industry. Our energy education mirrors the world use of energy. For now, that means a focus on fossil fuels. Though as the world’s energy mix changes over time, so will our curriculum. No matter what the energy source, we have always focused on teaching the primary skills necessary to a successful business career: issue analysis, critical thinking and problem solving. When we talk about the energy industry we are primarily referring to oil and gas. Within the oil and gas industry we cover upstream (exploration and production), midstream (transportation and refining) and downstream (wholesale and retail distribution). We also cover regulatory oversight, energy lending and investing, commodity trading and industry analysis. While the majority of our graduates focus on energy production and distribution, increasingly energy consumers such as manufacturers and even large retail chains are creating energy positions to focus on controlling consumption and cost of energy.
Students interested in upstream career opportunities typically become in-house negotiators/landman, division order analysts, government affairs/regulatory analysts and business development advisors. These students will focus on the Petroleum Land Management (PLM) concentration (cohort option 1) offered in the Energy Commerce curriculum. Those students interested in midstream and downstream opportunities typically enter the industry as market analysts, commercial analysts, gas schedulers and distribution analysts. These entry-level positions can lead to opportunities in oil and gas trading. These students will focus on the Energy Transaction Analysis (ETA) concentration (cohort option 2) offered in the Energy Commerce curriculum. While the PLM concentration is usually exploration and production sector specific, the ETA concentration is more broadly based, emphasizing skills more easily transferable across the spectrum of industry opportunities. Many of our graduates, usually from the PLM concentration, pursue graduate degrees in law as the PLM concentration has proven to be outstanding preparatory work for law school. ETA graduates pursuing graduate school tend to focus on finance or economic programs. From time to time there are international opportunities for new graduates though these foreign assignments usually require some industry experience (typically 5 years or more).
For more information contact kellie.estes@ttu.edu | 806.834.2046 M10Y2020