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One of our Oil 101 community members happens to be a fellow alum of the Thunderbird School of Global Management, where I got my MBA.
We had a chance to connect and discuss what he’s looking to get out of Oil 101, as well as what he’s been doing to open up opportunities in the oil and gas industry. He mentioned passing the ERP exam and some of the challenges in preparing for that particular test.
I thought his experience would be a good resource for other community members looking into the ERP, so asked him if he was interested in putting together a guest post about it.
He was, so here it is…
I passed the Energy Risk Professional (ERP) exam in November of 2015.
Easily, the hardest part of preparing for the exam was finding a decent set of practice problems. GARP provided about 100 practice problems in 2015, hardly enough to access my preparedness.
Here I will share a few resources I found that made me ready for the exam.
Resource 1 – GARP’s old practice questions
The curriculum for the ERP exam has changed quite a bit in its short history. Still, a majority of the material revolves around the characteristics of oil and gas, electricity markets, financial markets, and risk. This stuff does not change that much. Searching the GARP website, I found several past years’ problem sets. I did these problem sets repeatedly. I have included links to some of those problem sets at the end of this article.
Resource 2 – Examples from the GARP books
The practice problems provided by GARP did not cover all of the Learning Outcome Statements that you are responsible for on the exam. I went through the text, and made flashcards of all the different types of calculations provided as examples in the text. This will prepare you for all of the types of questions on the exam. I would pay special attention to the accounting methods of mineral rights and ordering components of oil and natural gas by their characteristics.
Resource 3 – Third party test prep resources
There are a few third party test prep providers. Here are quick reviews of the ones I looked at.
Bionic Turtle
Bionic Turtle focuses on the FRM. However, they offer free YouTube videos that are awesome at explaining how to calculate answers to complex problems.
ViveraRISK
ViveraRISK offers a set of notes and practice exams. I bought these and found little to no value in them. The information covers material from earlier years, and the questions do not follow the format of the exam.
The most effective way to prepare for the ERP is to engage in the material. It is important to read and study the coarse material, but doing many practice problems is by far more important.
In 2016, GARP began charging for their practice problem sets. Each 70 problem set costs $150.
It appears they have removed most of the old problem sets from their websites.
The following two problem sets are still available:
Best of luck! I hope this article helps you prepare for the ERP.
If you have other ideas or resources, be sure to put them in the comments for the rest of the community to learn from.
About The Author
Peter Rohlfer has always been fascinated with markets. He started trading equity options in 2006, and moved on to trading commodity futures in 2010.
Peter’s focus on option and calendar spreads in the energy complex lead him to pursue GARP’s Energy Risk Professional designation. While studying for the ERP, Peter was exposed to the power markets, and has decided to seek a Risk Analyst or Real Time Power Trader role with a power utility or power marketer.
Peter is a CFA Level II candidate and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Wabash College and a MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management with a focus on finance and risk management.
