ExxonMobil orders dozens of Brussels traders to move to London

EXXONMOBIL is to move dozens of traders from Brussels to London in a rare post-Brexit win for the City.

The US energy titan has decided to reorganise its growing trading business, moving traders from both the Brussels office and its UK office in Leatherhead, Surrey, into a single location in the Square Mile.

Those who refuse have been warned they will have to leave the company.

An Exxon spokesman said: “As we continue to strengthen our trading community, London provides better proximity to trading activities and trading talent pools, and will support our evolution as a trading organisation.”

The move will be seen as a sign of increased confidence in the City, which faced several years of uncertainty and turmoil as finance companies came to terms with the impact of Brexit.

Last month, a report by Cambridge Econometrics, commissioned by London’s City Hall, said that the capital now has 290,000 fewer jobs than if Brexit had not taken place, with its economy £30bn smaller than it would otherwise have been. A separate recent report, by the European Capital Markets Institute, said Brexit had hit UK stock markets and pensions badly but London’s position as a global financial centre was less affected.

It said: “The big outflow of banking jobs from London did not happen, nor did any EU-based financial centre clearly emerge as the winner, and nor did any big boost to London materialise, as some Brexiteers had hoped.”

ExxonMobil said the City of London had retained its place as a highly attractive place for global trading – and for recruiting skilled workers. Its new open-plan trading floor will house 170 people offering trading services to the full corporation across all markets and geographies. The spokesman said: “Our trading business buys and sells on the open market to ensure supplies of the crudes we need in our refineries, and also trades in the other products we produce, such as gases, liquefied natural gas and chemicals, plus new areas consistent with the energy transition, such as environmental certificates and CO2.”

ExxonMobil employs about 2,000 people in the UK and operates the giant Fawley refinery near Southampton, supplying most of the petrol and diesel sold in southern England including London. Pipelines from Fawley also send aviation fuel to Heathrow and Gatwick. A separate plant in Mossmorran, Fife, turns North Sea gas into ethylene – sometimes called the world’s “most important chemical” because it is the basis for many plastics, including polyethylene, polyester, PVC and styrene foams.

ExxonMobil’s trading expansion started in earnest in 2018 with the company exploiting its global networks for market intelligence.

The strategy resulted in record profits from trading in 2022 and a gain of more than $1bn (£790m) in the last three months of 2023.