Division 01
Oil & Petroleum
The full barrel, desk by desk — crude and condensate at one end, petroleum coke and carbon black feedstock at the other, and every refined cut in between. Thirteen product pages, each written to the standard its buyers actually enforce.
The division
One barrel, thirteen different arguments.
Oil and petroleum is not one desk with one specification. A refiner buying crude cares about acidity and metallurgy. A carbon black producer cares about BMCI. A cement kiln cares whether its country permits petcoke as fuel at all. Nothing useful can be said to all of them at once.
So this division page is an index rather than an essay. Each product below has its own page, written around the parameter that actually decides acceptance in that market — not a generic export description with the grade name changed. Where a page says we will decline something, or that we will not warrant something, that is deliberate and it is the same position on every page.
Three things are constant across the division, and they are set out at the foot of this page: how cargoes are delivered and documented, how specifications are released, and how origin is screened. Everything else is product-specific and lives on the product's own page.
The desks
Crude, condensate and the heavy end.
Crude Oil
West African export grades on an offtake basis. Built around total acid number rather than API, because low sulphur and high acidity together decide which refineries can run the barrel neat.
Gas Condensate
Stabilised C5+ into splitters, refineries and crackers. Vapour pressure, mercury, organic chlorides and salt — the four trace numbers that stop a cargo, none of them on a routine certificate.
Petroleum Coke
Fuel-grade green, anode-grade GPC, calcined and needle coke. Four grades, four buyer pools, and destination import rules that decide whether a trade exists before the specification does.
Carbon Black Feedstock
Decant and clarified slurry oil, ethylene cracker tar, coal tar, and blends declared as blends. Quoted on BMCI with the distillation and density behind it, plus the fouling parameters.
The desks
Refined products.
Gasoline
EN 228 unleaded and blend components. Led by vapour pressure class and oxygenate content rather than octane, because those are what strand a cargo in a seasonal market.
Naphtha
Light, full-range, heavy and open-spec. Crackers pay for paraffins, reformers for N+2A — the two buyers want opposite molecules at the same density.
Diesel
Automotive EN 590 at 10 mg/kg, in the temperate grade or arctic class the discharge market will actually see. Cetane number and index both reported, and the FAME position stated.
Gasoil
Heating, industrial and off-road. Three EU sulphur regimes depending on use, and fiscal marking under the current Euromarker rather than the one most offers still name.
Aviation Fuel & Kerosene
Jet A-1 to the AFQRJOS Checklist, Jet A, TS-1 and non-aviation burning kerosene, as seaborne parcels with the quality determination point written into the contract.
Marine Fuels & Bunkers
The ISO 8217:2024 slate as cargo parcels into a terminal. Stability and compatibility settled before the parcel is fixed rather than after it is commingled.
Base Oils & Additives
Groups I to III, re-refined, naphthenic and white oils. API 1509 defines a group on three parameters at once, and we test the claim rather than accept the heading.
Bitumen
Penetration, viscosity and performance grades, PMB, CRMB, cutbacks, emulsions and oxidised industrial grades, in bulk, bitutainer, drum and jumbo bag.
Certified Components
Co-processed diesel, kerosene and gasoline-range components as separate certified streams with a mass-balanced biogenic share, documented for compliance reporting.
Also on the book
Streams we trade without a page of their own.
These move on the same desks and under the same documentation, but they are bought by a small number of counterparties who already know exactly what they want — so they are handled by enquiry rather than by a published page.
| Stream | What it is | Who takes it |
|---|---|---|
| Vacuum gasoil — LS and HS | Heavy vacuum distillate. Bought on sulphur, density, viscosity, metals and Conradson carbon; heated handling throughout. | FCC and hydrocracker feed for refiners short of conversion feedstock. |
| Light cycle oil | FCC middle distillate — highly aromatic, poor cetane, high sulphur before treatment. | Hydrotreaters making diesel blendstock, and as a cutter stock. Also a route into CBFS blending. |
| Straight-run gasoil | Untreated atmospheric gasoil, before hydrotreating. Sulphur to the crude slate. | Refiners with spare hydrotreating capacity, and blending into higher-sulphur export tiers. |
| Heating oil | Handled as gas oil for heating duty — the 0.10 % sulphur regime, marked and coloured where the destination requires. | See Gasoil, where the sulphur regimes and marking are set out in full. |
Across the division
The three things that do not change by product.
Delivery and documentation
FOB, CIF, CFR and delivered cargo parcels; tank-to-tank transfers; truck and rail where the trade supports it. Bitumen additionally in steel drums of 150, 156 and 180 kg, jumbo bags, bitutainers and bulk into heated storage. Certificate of Quality per consignment, and a safety data sheet under REACH / CLP per product line in the destination language.
Independent inspection
An independent agency is appointed for the cargo — SGS, Bureau Veritas or Intertek — instructed jointly by both sides, sampling under supervision at a point agreed before the vessel arrives. The quality determination point and the quantity determination point are named separately in the contract rather than assumed, and sealed retained samples are held at both ends.
Origin screening
Counterparty and origin are screened per consignment, not once at onboarding. Chain of title, vessel history, AIS continuity and ship-to-ship history where relevant. Where an origin cannot be cleared we decline at enquiry rather than at fixture, and we do not refer the cargo onward — see Compliance.
Technical Library
Specifications are released, not published.
Assay tables, test-method schedules, refinery-specific historical data and product datasheets sit behind an identified request.
This is deliberate. A published specification reads as a standing offer, dates the moment a cargo changes, and gives a counterparty grounds to hold us to a figure we never quoted. Tell us what you are evaluating and we will send the actual document.
Enquiries
Every enquiry is answered by the desk that handles it.
Send the product, quantity, delivery basis, destination and timing. We revert with availability, an indication and the documentation that accompanies it. Specifications are released once we know who we are speaking with.