PHYSICAL OIL & GAS TRADING
Our physical desk trades crude oil and gas products across procurement, distribution and delivery. We operate through a partnership that holds one of a small number of licences issued in its market, a group otherwise made up of international oil majors, and we participate in official state tender processes for physical cargoes.
That access is not open. Licensing of this kind is granted selectively and held under continuing review, which means the position is maintained through performance rather than renewed as a formality. Every tender participated in and every cargo delivered forms part of that record.
Registration with the relevant state producers is underway, extending the range of counterparties the desk can transact with directly. Direct registration matters more than it first appears. It removes intermediaries from the chain, shortens the path between tender award and lifting, and gives the desk visibility over allocation decisions that resellers never see.
Recent activity spans fuel oil delivery tenders and condensate, with the product range widening as the desk builds counterparty coverage. Fuel oil and condensate sit at different ends of the barrel and clear through different buyers, so trading both requires separate relationships, separate logistics and separate credit lines. Building that breadth deliberately is slower than concentrating on a single grade, and considerably more durable.
Further term supply agreements with producer counterparties are in negotiation. The desk grows by adding term structure rather than volume alone, which is what allows supply commitments to be made with confidence over multi year horizons.
Term business carries obligations that spot trading does not. Vessels have to be secured, credit has to be committed ahead of lifting, and a missed cargo is a relationship ended rather than a trade lost. That is the discipline the desk is built around, and it is the reason growth is measured in committed structure rather than in headline volume.
Beyond tender participation, the desk holds term supply agreements that give both sides a known position over an extended period. Tender work is competitive and episodic. Term business is the part of the book that can be planned against, by the desk and by the counterparty alike, and it is where a physical trading operation either establishes itself or does not.
Term crude supply agreements underpin the book, providing scheduled monthly liftings of a medium sour grade with established refinery demand. Consistency of delivery is the product being sold.
A refinery configured for a particular crude quality cannot substitute freely. Density, sulphur content and yield profile all feed directly into the plant economics, so a reliable monthly barrel of a known specification is worth holding a relationship for, and worth structuring that relationship carefully.
For a refiner, a scheduled term barrel is a planning input rather than a procurement exercise. Run rates, maintenance windows and product commitments can all be set against a known volume, which is worth more than the marginal cargo price in a volatile market.
The alternative is buying into a spot market at the moment of need, which is precisely the moment the market prices that need against you. Term supply removes that exposure from the refiner operating decision entirely, and it is why term relationships survive periods when spot pricing looks more attractive on paper.
Term relationships are held on transparent commercial terms. Producers retain visibility over pricing and offtake, which is what makes the arrangements durable across a cycle rather than a season.
Agreements that work for only one side at one point in the price cycle do not survive the next one. A desk that renegotiates under pressure is not a desk producers return to, and the terms we hold are set on the assumption that both parties will still want them in three years.
The desk is built to be a dependable counterparty on a defined set of flows rather than a presence in every market. That is a deliberate choice.
Depth in a smaller number of relationships is what allows commitments to be met without exception, and performance on delivery obligations is the only record that carries weight in physical trading. It is the record we are building, cargo by cargo.