Commodity dealer Trafigura Group Pte. Ltd. stated Thursday the outage on the Freeport LNG terminal in Texas has eliminated a lot wanted provide and “important flexibility” from its portfolio, however stated the size of its operations have offset points and helped it flip in file income for 2022.

Trafigura, a dominant dealer within the world liquefied pure fuel market, has a three-year offtake settlement for 0.5 million tons/yr with Freeport that expires in March. The plant has been offline since June, when an explosion halted operations. Freeport expects to renew service by the top of the yr. 

The buying and selling agency stated it was capable of capitalize on excessive volatility within the world commodity market following a reshuffle of vitality provide flows after Russia invaded Ukraine in February.

Trafigura reported $7 billion in income for fiscal 2022, which ended Sept. 30, versus fiscal 2021  earnings of about $3 billion. Income was up by 38% over the identical time to $318.5 billion. 

Unsettled 2023 Oil, Fuel Buying and selling?

Wanting forward, the corporate expects the crude oil and pure fuel markets to stay unsettled subsequent yr. Europe will want “to import big volumes of LNG in 2023 given the large discount” in Russian imports, administration stated.

“For liquefied pure fuel to proceed to circulate to Europe versus different demand facilities, the value might want to stay elevated, and we anticipate safety of provide to stay paramount for patrons in Europe by subsequent winter and past.”

The sharp revenue achieve got here regardless of a yr/yr decline in oil and petroleum merchandise buying and selling. The decline resulted from terminating long-term contracts for Russian crude and different fuels following worldwide sanctions. 

Trafigura stated it traded a mean of 6.6 million b/d of oil and petroleum merchandise in the course of the yr, down from 7 million in 2021. 

Trafigura additionally stated a steep improve in margin necessities by futures exchanges and clearing brokers throughout a unstable yr “considerably elevated the price of transferring bodily cargoes.” That diminished liquidity within the bodily and monetary markets and “exacerbated volatility.”

The agency stated it used its capability on pipelines in america to hold pure fuel from the Permian Basin to liquefaction vegetation on the Gulf Coast. Cargoes had been largely moved throughout the Atlantic to Trafigura’s regasification slots in Europe. 

“From right here, our LNG and pure fuel group was capable of commerce and ship the molecules to the place they had been wanted,” the agency stated.  “In lots of situations, the fuel went into leased storage forward of the winter.”

General, for LNG, Trafigura stated it traded 13 million metric tons of oil equal, down 7% from final yr. Traded pure fuel volumes had been flat at 23.7 million metric tons of oil equal.