Gunvor Shakes Up Leadership After Crude Oil Trading Losses

(Bloomberg) — Gunvor Group is renewing its leadership team after taking some hits in crude oil trading last year including a bullish North Sea play that went wrong, according to Chief Executive Officer Torbjörn Törnqvist.

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The shake-up at Gunvor is the latest sign that a boom period for commodity traders over the past few years is giving way to a more mixed environment, where range-bound oil markets in particular are hitting profits for traders who thrive on volatility. Still, profits across the industry continue to be higher than before the coronavirus pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine supercharged earnings.

Törnqvist said in an interview that Gunvor’s profits in the second half of 2024 had been lower than the first half, but that the full-year result would still be one of the four or five best in the company’s history. Gunvor’s crude oil trading had been profitable, he said, but “there were some aspects of our crude oil trading that did not do what they should do, so it’s normal we adjust.”

Gunvor, a private company majority-owned by Törnqvist, is due to report its 2024 results to bondholders in the coming weeks. First-half profits were $417 million, down around 48% from a year earlier.

Several senior trading executives have left Gunvor in recent months, including most recently co-head of trading Stephane Degenne, Bloomberg reported this week. Other recent departures include head of crude trading Benoit Roulon.

Törnqvist said the people who were leaving were doing so “on very good terms with the company.”

“It’s a reset and setting the course for the future,” he said. The company is also making new hires, such as Gary Pedersen, who recently joined from Millennium Management LLC as president and CEO of Americas.

Gunvor raised eyebrows in the North Sea crude market last summer by bidding up grades of crude that make up the key Dated Brent benchmark.

Törnqvist said the bullish North Sea play “didn’t go according to plan.” Asked what the plan had been, he replied: “To make money.”

He highlighted Gunvor’s North American oil-trading business as an area of strength, saying the company was one of the largest exporters of crude from the US. He said that an $800 million deal to finance the government of Gabon’s purchase of oil producer Assala Energy from Carlyle Group had been “one of the good stories” for Gunvor.