SpaceX creates its own natural gas trading operation

Elon Musk's SpaceX is forming its own natural gas trading unit that will provide for the company's growing fuel and electricity needs. The company is looking for a trader who will be tasked with creating a team and conducting both physical and financial operations in the gas market.

This is reported by Bloomberg citing a job posting published by SpaceX.

The new trader is expected to create and lead a small team that will buy and sell natural gas, manage supplies and price risks. Its task will be to provide gas for launches, production of space equipment, energy facilities and other SpaceX infrastructure.

The team's duties will include operations with both physical gas supplies and financial instruments. SpaceX also wants to use trading strategies that allow responding to changes in prices, weather, pipeline and storage utilization, regulation and fuel demand.

The future head of the direction is also expected to look for price imbalances at various gas hubs and markets, manage trading positions and the unit's financial result. Thus, this is not just about fuel procurement under fixed contracts, but about full-fledged trading and optimization of the gas portfolio.

At the same time, the job posting suggests that the main goal of the new structure is not to turn SpaceX into an independent gas supplier for external customers, but to reduce the cost and risks of energy supply for its own facilities.

SpaceX sharply increases gas demand

The creation of a trading direction comes amid a large-scale expansion of SpaceX's own energy infrastructure. In early August, the company announced plans to build gas power plants for the huge Terafab semiconductor complex, which it is developing in Texas together with Tesla.

The first phase of the project is estimated at $16.8 billion. The complex is planned to house not only semiconductor production, but also its own gas power plants, large battery systems and artificial intelligence infrastructure.

According to the company's plan, Terafab should largely provide for its electricity needs independently and not depend on the Texas power grid. For this, SpaceX intends to build natural gas-fired power plants directly on the site and massive energy storage systems.

At the same time, SpaceX is looking for specialists in gas supply and pipeline infrastructure. One of the published company vacancies provides for developing a long-term gas procurement strategy, reserving pipeline capacities and building new connections to energy facilities.

The expansion of the gas business shows that energy is becoming a separate strategic direction for SpaceX. The growth of production, launches, computing power and new industrial projects requires the company to have ever larger volumes of guaranteed and relatively cheap energy supply.