This is a profile image of Alan Martin

Alan Martin

Senior ExpertLondon

Serves clients seeking to improve their refining operations and advises on downstream strategy topics—helping companies boost performance and competitiveness

Alan rejoined McKinsey in 2004, following an executive role overseeing business development across the EMEA region for the largest North American private refiner and trader. Since then, he has been advising clients across the European oil trading and refining industries on a range of topics, including refining portfolio and strategy, supply chain optimization, and mergers and acquisitions.

A former co-leader of the European Oil & Gas Practice, Alan brings in-depth knowledge, counter-intuitive strategic insight, deep technical expertise, and substantial hands-on experience in refining operations management. With his support, clients have discovered untapped efficiencies in their operations, identified new capital investment opportunities, and seized strategic openings in the petroleum trading business that have helped them bolster performance and competitiveness.

Examples of his work include:

  • spearheading several refinery profit improvement studies, oil trading development initiatives, and global supply development reports for multinational oil companies
  • redesigning and implementing best-in-class supply planning and optimization practices for a major player in the US oil sector
  • supporting the consolidation of a European oil company’s trading activities and the opening of a new London trading business
  • leading a performance improvement diagnostic study for a European polyolefins business, followed by the launch of a major performance improvement program that established new benchmarks for the company

Keenly interested in industry dynamics, Alan also helps advise the team leading Energy Insights Global Downstream Model, an inter-regional modeling tool providing a comprehensive view of future downstream markets—including global and regional refining utilization outlooks, regional product balances and inter-regional crude and product flows.

Early in his career, Alan worked as a refinery hydrocracker technologist at a UK refinery of one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies and as a chief technical advisor for a multinational company developing and licensing technology to the petroleum refining and petrochemical production industries.

Alan is a Chartered Engineer in the UK and a member of the Institute of Chemical Engineers.

Published work

Impact of low crude prices on refining,” McKinsey & Company, February 2015

Past experience

Koch Supply & Trading Company
Vice president

KBC Advanced Technologies
Consultant

Universal Oil Products
Refinery process engineer

Shell UK, Oil
Refinery process engineer

Education

Cambridge University
MA with honors, chemical engineering

Cambridge University
MEng, chemical engineering