Wholesale marketers are entities that purchase natural gas or electric supply for the purposes or reselling the supply to other market participants. Wholesale marketers typically obtain supply from gas producers, electric generators, other marketers, or utilities that have excess supply beyond what their customers need, and they resell it to utilities, aggregators, retail marketers, large industrial customers, or other wholesale marketers. Successful marketers add value by saving suppliers and customers the trouble of finding each other, by arranging for gas transport and storage or electric transmission and ancillary services, and sometimes by assuming price or other marketplace risks.
Many large gas producers and electric generation companies have a wholesale marketing arm to handle marketing the output of their assets, while others simply sell to independent marketing companies. Wholesale marketers’ skills tend to focus on risk management, portfolio optimization, and direct sales.