Gunvor (company)
| Gunvor Group Ltd
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|---|---|
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| legal form | Besloten Vennootschap (BV) |
| founding | 1997 |
| Seat | Amsterdam , Netherlands / Geneva , Switzerland |
| management | Torbjörn Törnqvist |
| Number of employees | 1,500 |
| sales | $ 87 billion |
| Branch | Commodity trading |
| Website | www.gunvorgroup.com |
| Status: 2018 | |
Gunvor Group Ltd is an oil trading company registered in Nicosia , Cyprus and based in Amsterdam , Geneva and Singapore . Gunvor is active in the areas of trading, transport, storage and optimization of petroleum and petroleum products and also has substantial interests in oil terminals, mixing and port facilities, oil pipelines and production projects.
activities
The company's operations essentially consist of “upstream” activities for supplying crude oil to the markets via pipelines and oil tankers . A branch has been in Geneva since 2003 . As one of the world's largest oil and gas trading companies, Gunvor distributes promotions from companies such as Surgutneftegas , Rosneft and Gazprom outside of Russia . In 2007 this amount is said to have been 83 million tons. This makes Gunvor the fourth largest oil trading company in the world after Vitol , Glencore and Trafigura .
background
The Swedish entrepreneur Torbjörn Törnqvist and his Russian partner Gennadi Timtschenko founded the company in 1997. Shortly before Western sanctions against Russia came into force in the course of the Crimean crisis , in which Timchenko was also named as the person affected, he sold his stake to Torbjörn Törnqvist in March 2014, who has since held around 87% of the shares; the remaining 13% are held by senior staff.
In 2003 the company started operations in Geneva. According to the Financial Times, Gunvor was a "niche player" until 2007 with a focus on the export of Russian oil through Estonia, drawing on the know-how of the two founders in the oil business, Russian markets and transit traffic.
Gunvor also made investments in oil storage facilities, rail transport as well as port facilities and terminals and, according to Tornqvist, secured a "competitive advantage over the competition". According to the company's website, Gunvor has relationships with a rail transport company (Transoil) that specializes in oil transportation and operates a fleet of tankers on lease, which allows the company to keep costs down and to distribute profit margins [citation required]. Gunvor owns its own shipping company, Clearlake Shipping Ltd, through which 30% of Baltic crude oil (20.5 million tons) was shipped in 2006. According to Nefte Compass, Gunvor's Russian oil exports grew sixteen-fold between February 2002 and February 2008. The company controls 60% of the volume transported through Estonia and 41% of this volume in transit via the port of Primorsk (Leningrad) . The group has made significant investments in facilities such as oil terminals and refineries; Gunvor is also involved in the Ust-Luga oil terminal near Saint Petersburg. The annual throughput of this terminal is expected to reach 25 million metric tons. The total investment from the start of construction in 2008 was $ 800 million. The new BPS-2 pipeline, which is not to be routed through Ukraine and Belarus, will connect Unecha via the Druzhba pipeline to Ust-Luga, where the oil will be exported by tanker. In September 2009 Gunvor invested directly in oil production for the first time with the acquisition of a 30% stake in the Lagansky Block in the Caspian Sea from Lundin Petroleum. This oil field contains proven reserves of more than 230 million barrels.
In 2012 Gunvor acquired the refineries of the insolvent Petroplus in Antwerp and Desching near Ingolstadt .
Controversy
Gennady Timchenko is an acquaintance of Vladimir Putin , who, according to various media reports, also worked in the KGB's department for foreign espionage in the 1980s . He and his former partner, former secret service employee Andrei Pannikov, have always denied the numerous allegations that Timchenko worked for the KGB.
On November 12, 2007, the Russian political scientist Stanislaw Belkowski stated in an internationally acclaimed interview with the daily newspaper Die Welt that Putin is said to be involved in Gunvor through Timchenko. However, Putin has denied being affiliated with Gunvor or having played any role in the company's rise.
The weekly newspaper from Zurich reported in December 2011 that the US ambassador to Russia, John Beyrle, named Putin as a co-owner of Gunvor in a report published by WikiLeaks in September 2008 after Washington. In 2012 the Economist presented a dossier on Gunvor's market behavior in oil trading. As a result, Gunvor manipulated the market price for Urals oil between 2005 and 2009 .
From 2010 to 2012 Gunvor was also active in the crude oil business with the Republic of the Congo . She received a total of 22 deliveries of crude oil valued at 2.2 billion US dollars, making money as a trader, broker and financial service provider. In 2012, the Swiss Federal Police raided the company's offices in Geneva on suspicion of bribery and corruption with the Congolese rulers.
See also
literature
- Marc Guéniat ao: Gunvor in the Congo - oil, bribes, politics. The adventures of a Geneva company in Brazzaville , Zurich, Public Eye Magazine No. 7, September 2017
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b KEY FIGURES. Retrieved on August 24, 2019 .
- Jump up ↑ Oil Trade: The City, Oil and Money - Capital. August 2, 2009, accessed February 4, 2020 .
- ↑ Gunvor Ensures Continued Operations. Gunvor press release. March 20, 2014, accessed March 21, 2014 .
- ↑ Leo Müller: Ölhandel: Die Stadt, das Öl und das Geld Archived from the original on August 2, 2009. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Capital . February 12, 2009. Retrieved December 17, 2011.
- ^ "How Gunvor rose to the top of Russian oil trading" In: Financial Times
- ↑ in an interview with the Financial Times 'How Gunvor rose to the top of Russian Oil trading' , May 14, 2008
- ↑ River Lake Group: 'Who is the Tsar of Baltic oil' , January 19, 2007
- ↑ Energy Intelligence: 'Gunvor delays Ust-Luga launch, moves into coal trading' , December 8, 2009
- ↑ Reuters : 'Reuters sells Russia Baltic oil terminal to Transneft' , September 8, 2009
- ^ Lundin partners with Gunvor in the Lagansky Block . lundin-petroleum.com. September 2, 2009. Retrieved December 17, 2011.
- ^ Luke Harding : Russian billionaire drops libel case against Economist ( English ) . In: The Guardian , July 30, 2009. Retrieved December 17, 2011.
- ↑ "One should not overestimate Putin's active role" In: Die Welt, November 12, 2007, online edition
- ↑ "Oil Trading Group Gunvor Denies Putin Links" In: Financial Times of December 3, 2010 (English)
- ↑ "Putin Denies Aiding Oil Trader" In: Financial Times of September 28, 2011 (English)
- ↑ Expensive oil and a cheap watch . In: The weekly newspaper of December 8, 2011
- ↑ Riddles, mysteries and enigmas . In: The Economist, May 5, 2012.
- ↑ Marc Guéniat ao: Gunvor in the Congo - oil, bribes, politics. The adventures of a Geneva company in Brazzaville , Zurich, Public Eye Magazine No. 7, September 2017
