Industry Insight: Where Did OW Bunker's Staff Resurface?

One of the most heavily publicised stories of Q4 last year was the news that OW Bunker had filed for bankruptcy; Cue a flurry of hiring activity which has subsequently dominated the global bunkering scene in the last 10 weeks, as talent migrated either in teams or individually to rivals within the within the marine fuel sector - as well as several who resurfaced at less likely destinations across the wider shipping landscape.

Commodity has been tracking scores of the ex-OW Bunker hires to have taken place in the last 2 and-a-half months; here are some of these findings, featuring some of the more interesting, lesser-publicised moves.

Perhaps the most headline-courting scoop was Mercuria's hiring of 40 or so staff, integrating some into the trading house's existing fuel oil business, whilst equally marking the establishment of a bunker trading subsidiary; Minerva Bunkers – which was officially launched December 5th.
Initial hires into Minerva included Bunker Manager Sonnich Thomsen, as well as Bunker Traders Mona Liu, Jason Teo, Derron Tan and Bree Yek.

Other OW hires into Mercuria outside of Singapore have also included Geneva-based Bunker Traders Sebastian Unz and Maxime Cramer.

One of the firms who hired entire teams from the fallout include UAE-based trading firm Glander International Bunkering with multiple hires in Dubai including Bunker Traders Kristian Pedersen, Carolina Herrera, Christoffer Pedersen and Shahid Malik. Brazil was another gain for the firm with 8 reported former OW staff going to Glander's Rio office – led by Flavio Ribeiro, whilst other global noteworthy hires included Bunker Trader Jacky Nguyen joining in Singapore.

Dan Bunkering took multiple hires – perhaps indeed the most heavily-profiled in the popular press revolving around a team of five who formed the firm's new Aalborg office – led by Rune Pejtersen. Other individual hires of note within EMEA include Senior Bunker Trader Kurosh Khonsari in Dubai.

Integr8 Fuels took a swathe of Bunker Traders across Hamburg, London, Singapore and Dubai including Rasmus Holm Jensen, Daniel Grűnwald, Karl-Heinz Selmerto and Simon Kelly – whilst Unioil Supply A/S; a subsidiary of The Bunker Holding Group, hired several in Denmark including Senior Traders Carsten Jensen and Troels Jacobsen, alongside Sales Managers Per Funch-Nielsen and Lars Elsberg.

Other firms to hire multiple staff include; Cockett Marine Oil [across Athens, Dubai, Singapore & Shanghai – including Trading Manager John Tsogas and Senior Trader Ashley Lim], KPI Bridge Oil [London – including Bunker Traders Giorgia Franchini and Anders Stom], Oil Marketing & Trading International (OMTI) [Athens – including Trading Manager Joe Bahou and Bunker Trader Loukas Vanger], Peninsula Petroleum [Copenhagen – including Trading Manager Jesper Moeller Schmidt and Senior Trader Daniel Lohmann Hansen] and World Fuel Services [Aalborg, Singapore and Houston – including Bunker Traders Brian Shores and Grace Ong.]

Moves to Outside of the Bunker Industry

Not all of the OW talent jumped to other bunkering firms. Some of the other individual/smaller-scale hires - either lesser-reported or to a company outside of the OW competitor 'usual suspects' include;

• Richard Bjercke, former Branch Manager OW Suisse, joined Gunvor in Geneva as Co-Head Residual Oil Products – Gunvor [other than Mercuria] here being one of the few trading houses to notch up a scoop from the firm.
• VP Soren Christian Meyer joined Maersk Tankers in Copenhagen as Chartering Director alongside Andreas Nørgaard-Pedersen as Charterer
• Senior Bunker Trader Lai Lawrence joined Gulf Oil Marine in Singapore as Marine Sales Manager
• Bunker Trader Emmanuel Charvier joined SwissEnergy Trading & Supply in Geneva

One of perhaps the least expected hirers came in the form of European renewables utility NEAS Energy A/S which hired at least three OW staff, including Senior Oil Trader Jørgen Olesen as Portfolio Manager, alongside Risk Analyst Torben Jensen.

Many other ex-OW hires have been tracked and many more names are still under the radar waiting to resurface now into 2015; what is clear is that the competitive bunker fuel market is eagerly absorbing the results of OW Bunker's demise and looks likely to be a buoyant hiring space going forward for the foreseeable future.