Difference between natty/power and oil/other?

The great divide is physical vs financial.  Trading TI or Brent on the screen is way different than delivery or buying phyical Mars for example.  Same with P&G.  Ask any natty trader on here if they want to be short physical AGT-J in winter.  Ask any power plant operator the same question (hello, Everett!).  Talk to the folks in ERCOT about their being no offer on molecules last winter.  The reason P&G is harder is that we have to do this hourly or minutely depending on the situation.

Ask any Kenyan about the "monkey blackout" or any North American about the "Great squirrel blackout" and you will understand why we all drink heavily.

However the real quant shops are trading only financial and generally vituals.

Personally prefer tren with a test base over natty / synthol (or other oils) for optimal blend of power and aesthetics. Just my 2 cents though

Physical oil and gasoline are more relationship-based than physical gas and power. This is a function of data being more public in gas and power. 

However, in both you spend a lot of time in front of the screen and both can have a large social aspect. 

So I see this kind of question flying around and it just doesn't make sense to me.  In my experience, traders sit at screens all day they are either taking risk in the market or laying off risk in the market, but the market is on the screen.  You can have a relationship with people via the screen, I have plenty sometimes; I'm the first call, sometimes the last.  I'm also not saying I have never met a counterparty for a happy hour.

I think when most people on here talk about a "relationship" they are referring to stuff like golf, box tickets, etc.  If that's what you mean, those roles are Originators/Marketers.

The fact is the Energy industry really is not that large, whether you're on the financial side or physical side you need relationships to grow your career and succeed.  All of the above applies to power/natty (where I work) and crude/products (tons of friends work).  I don't really think this would be product specific, probably more role or company specific.

Energy --

Agree.  One counterpoint is that traders that I dealt with used to come to the big events / golf / or meetings as well.

Seems a lot of folks on origination end responding. Anyways its simple homogenous products versus more complicated products that have not developed into standard contracts. 
Majority of natty is traded under a basic nasbe, majority of pipelines have the same “spec gas”, all storage basically works the same. One can find liquidity while hard on basis, knowing its the WAP of physical market.

I never have to care about different blends, specific contract rules, freight, etc…Natty was made to be standardized when it was deregulated. Due to this it will attract more data driven people while other products are less standard/complicated/one-off risk.