While Gunvor’s underlying trading platform continued to perform well, with significant new contributions from LNG and biofuels, adverse events altogether impacted net results for the Group. Gunvor faced a number of challenges in 2018, including a challenging physical energy trading environment due to abrupt market reversals and political uncertainty, and losses related to one-time items, such as the cancelled development project for the Rotterdam operation, a write-off related to an upstream project, and provisions taken concerning litigation. Gunvor, however, did move quickly to proactively address its challenges throughout the year by making decisive, strategic adjustments to its operations, including restructuring, trimming costs, and investing in its trading platform.

Gunvor has remained consistently focused on its core business areas, which are crude oil, oil products, natural gas and LNG. To build for the future in these areas—while the commercial teams have been cycling through a generational shift—the company has made internal promotions and selective external hires to further strengthen our presence in specific markets. The Group also undertook considerable restructuring to increase efficiency and reduce overall structure costs, including the reduction of the workforce.