Capital Committee Adviser — Refining, Storage and Marketing Investment Trade-Offs

The mandate

An integrated energy infrastructure board keeps revisiting how to allocate limited capital among refining-support improvements, additional storage and marketing-network capacity. Each proposal appears defensible in isolation, but the cases assume different product spreads, utilisation trajectories and funding conditions. A twelve-month adviser will help the capital committee compare those choices on a coherent economic basis from 26 October 2026. The standing question is which investment preserves strategic flexibility when the market changes, not which sponsor can present the highest central-case return.

The work involves challenging assumptions rather than independently certifying engineering estimates. You will ask how interdependencies alter incremental value, whether storage creates profitable optionality or merely moves existing inventory, and how marketing expansion changes working-capital exposure. Delayed commissioning and underused capacity need explicit downside cases. The committee also needs a disciplined distinction between mandatory expenditure and discretionary growth: forcing both into the same return hurdle can conceal the true choice or encourage unsupported claims that every project is strategically unavoidable.

The retainer reserves four days per month for case review, a working discussion and written challenge notes. Six scheduled capital-committee meetings across the year are included without a separate attendance charge. Acknowledgement is due within two business days and a reasoned response within four business days of a complete request. Unscheduled site visits or additional committee meetings require agreed capacity and fees before booking. At expiry, the chair may recommend renewal to the board; continuation is neither automatic nor tied to whether a particular project proceeds.

This engagement carries no line authority and no executive responsibility. Management remains accountable for engineering, forecasting and implementation, while directors approve capital. Two unrelated advisory commitments can coexist if response and attendance obligations remain protected. Financial interests in equipment suppliers, energy competitors or transaction bidders must be disclosed; affected cases require documented recusal and segregated information, or refusal of access. No directorship or fiduciary appointment is conferred. The adviser must remain willing to challenge a fashionable expansion thesis without becoming an alternative sponsor for a competing project.

What you will own

• Test whether project cases use compatible demand, product-spread and financing assumptions, advising the committee where apparent return differences arise from inconsistent scenarios rather than superior investment economics.
• Challenge utilisation forecasts for storage and marketing assets against physical constraints and customer evidence, distinguishing genuinely incremental contribution from activity transferred out of the existing network.
• Recommend a capital-comparison framework that separates mandatory compliance or reliability expenditure from discretionary growth, making the board's actual choices visible without disguising unavoidable costs as high-return expansion.
• Press project sponsors on delayed-commissioning cash consequences and stranded-capacity risk, shaping downside questions that connect timing uncertainty to portfolio funding limits and practical mitigation choices.
• Review shared infrastructure dependencies across proposals, helping the committee identify when approving one asset commits additional spending elsewhere or removes the option to pursue a different commercial strategy.
• Counsel the chair on deferral and sequencing alternatives, preserving decision records that explain why capital was held back, redirected or conditionally released rather than portraying every approval as a binary verdict.

Candidate qualifications

• Have eighteen to twenty-two years of senior finance experience in energy, metals or similarly capital-intensive sectors, with direct participation in significant investment decisions. Describe a portfolio choice you influenced by exposing inconsistent assumptions between sponsors. Your evidence should include the economic question, the alternative considered and the board's response, rather than merely the size of capital expenditure reviewed.
• Demonstrate substantial commercial-finance, capital-allocation and controls expertise. You should be able to test spread, utilisation, commissioning and funding scenarios while recognising which inputs require engineering or market specialists. A strong professional finance foundation is expected, coupled with the ability to explain why an apparently attractive return estimate may not represent incremental value or preserve acceptable downside flexibility.
• Evidence advisory judgement that remains independent without becoming detached from operating realities. Show how you challenged a senior sponsor constructively, retained unresolved uncertainty in a committee paper and avoided claiming authority to certify technical readiness. Familiarity with board governance is valuable, but a director title is not required; the role needs an experienced finance voice rather than a formal fiduciary appointment.
• Reserve the stated monthly capacity and six committee dates, with realistic arrangements for other engagements. Disclose interests in competing operators, equipment suppliers and financing counterparties before receiving their related cases. You must handle commercially sensitive scenarios securely, recognise when recusal makes meaningful contribution impossible and remain willing to decline conflicted work instead of relying on confidentiality wording alone.

Application

Applications for this mandate are received in one way only: through the India Board Terminal's application process. It is automated end to end. Your Executive Passport travels to the mandate holder in its confidential form, your answers to the three questions below are read before anything else in your file, and every stage that follows is recorded on your applications page.

There is no address to write to and no intermediary to call. The mandate holder reads what the Terminal delivers and nothing else, which is what keeps the process the same for every applicant and keeps your name out of it until you release it. Applications close on 10 October 2026. Mandate reference CVU-ADV-2026-IND-011.