Curtis J. Ruder

Curtis Ruder has over 15 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, spanning petroleum refining operations, logistics, economics, process control, and engineering. He advises clients across a broad range of industries, including chemicals, petroleum refining, and transportation and storage, on subjects such as asset valuations, crude oil valuations, LP planning, markets, and product quality.

Curtis began his career as a Process Engineer with NCRA and later Flint Hills Resources, providing technical support for various refinery process units. He subsequently gained experience in Linear Programming (LP) development and took over the site’s gasoline blending planning. From 2017 to 2022, Curtis served as a consultant for Baker & O’Brien, maintaining the PRISM™ U.S. refining database. He went on to serve as Principal Refining Optimization Engineer at Imubit, designing and implementing process optimization at refineries worldwide. As a Market Analytics Specialist at Cenovus, he supported the trading desk by forecasting crude and product impacts from refinery operations and outages.

Curtis rejoined Baker & O’Brien in 2026 to provide consulting services for refinery competitiveness analysis, crude valuation, economic feasibility, and market supply and demand studies. With a particular focus on process optimization and market analysis, he draws on experience across engineering, optimization, and commercial functions to offer clients an insightful perspective on complex issues.