NOBLE GROUP EXITS GLOBAL OIL TRADING

Group closes London desk and Asia operations amid heavy losses and high debt level, say sources

LONDON

The company, which had a market capitalisation of US$6 billion in early February 2015, was plunged into crisis after a report by blogger Iceberg Research later that month questioning its accounting.

Noble stood by its accounts and rejected the report’s allegations but coupled with a major commodities downturn, the firm was unable to recover investor confidence. Its market value has shrunk to around US$215 million.

The closure of its London and Singapore desks marks an effective exit from the oil trading business. In 2016, the number of employees at NCFL (Noble Clean Fuels Ltd), here, was 25, down from 35 the year before.

The Singapore-listed company, founded in 1986 by Richard Elman, is returning to its roots as a hard commodities business in Asia, mainly involved in coal marketing, a business that is partly financed by Mercuria Group.

Traders said they have not seen activity from the company in several months and its head of crude, Chris McAleese, left late last year.

He was hired about a year ago to rebuild the business during a brief upswing in the company’s finances.

Noble’s star petrol trader in the United States, Dimitri Sinenko, was poached by Gunvor at the end of last year.

Two distillate traders recently moved from the London office to Unipec and a crude trader went to Trafigura.

From Noble’s Singapore oil desk, a senior crude trader just moved to Statoil and Morten Buur-Jensen became Singapore managing director of Africa-focused oil trader Mocoh in November last year.

A source in Asia said the firm was winding down some old contracts with only a handful of employees left. Reuters