Gas & LNG
Significant talent moves
Talent search and competitive intelligence specialists
In Vienna, Raphaël Godon is now Senior Gas Trader for OMV, having been on the gas trading desk of Centrica in Denmark since 2017. Raphaël’s history in trading natural gas started with Eni in Paris in 2009-2012 and progressed to prop trades in gas and emissions for Altercorp in Geneva before Centrica beckoned from Aalborg.
Promotion for Alan Heng at gas import company Pavilion Energy in Singapore. In addition to his existing position heading the division that handles energy sales, Alan steps up to be MD-Asia. Alan’s an ex-GM of Mobil Taiwan whose steps from there took him to Mobil Oil New Zealand, Refining NZ and an executive role with ExxonMobil as Regional Manager for its downstream business in the Pacific Islands and Oceania. Having completed the purchase of Spanish energy company Iberdrola’s LNG and gas assets at the beginning of the year, Pavillon also announces the appointment of José Simón as MD for Europe with a remit of overseeing the European gas trading, global LNG portfolio management and origination divisions. José had been with Iberdrola for over 22 years, most recently as Director Gas Procurement, Coal and Carbon Emissions.
*Based on answers given by participants in a recent survey run by Commodity Appointments re. analysts/strategists compensation in Gas & LNG
*Based on answers given by participants in a recent survey run by Commodity Appointments re. analysts/strategists compensation in Gas & LNG
Emera Energy in Canada promotes Patrick Munro to Director-Natural Gas Trading. Patrick was most recently a natural gas trader with the Nova Scotia company. During more than 11 years at Emera, he has also been an asset manager, an energy trader and a gas scheduler.
Andy Job is the new Head of European Gas Trading for TrailStone. At former company PetroChina he’d headed gas trading in the EMEA region and previously with Merrill Lynch he was MD-Gas Trading.
World Kinect Energy Services in Bergen chooses Jan Harald Saeth from Alpiq for Commercial Director-Northern Europe. While at Alpiq Oslo he was head of origination in the Nordic area, a responsibility he had also held previously for the same group until 2008 and latterly at Noble Clean Fuels and EDF Trading.
Cecile Wake is named CEO by Arrow Energy. She joins the Australian onshore gas company from five years as VP-Commercial and head of economics for Shell Australia’s investments in oil and gas. In 2010 Cecile was at BG Group in London as strategy manager for gas in the UK energy market and returned to Queensland a year later to be GN-Commercial at the group’s QGC business. A VP role with QGC followed and from 2014 she became group growth director in Brisbane until her move to Shell.
Gas Originator at BP in Madrid is the new job title of Carmen Albert, ending two years as Luxembourg-based senior gas trader for ArcelorMittal. Previous Madrid roles for Carmen included commodity trading on behalf of Endesa and Enel.
Meanwhile at BP London, Verzhiniya Georgieva becomes Lead European Gas Analyst. She arrives from gas analytics positions with BG Group and Shell.
Oliver Siebert spent 11 years in the German city of Kassel, working for natural gas supplier Wingas, but he operates today out of Amsterdam after moving to the Netherlands to join Route4Gas. The company offers smart-transaction methods for increased liquidity and optimised flows in European markets for natural gas, announcing at a January conference this year that RWE had signed as its first customer.
New Head of European Gas Trading for TrailStone
Michigan native Austin Currie stays in Ann Arbor to be a Junior Natural Gas Trader for DTE Energy. Austin originally came to DTE in 2015 as an intern to learn gas scheduling, which by 2018 had led to employment there as a senior T&E natural gas scheduler before his latest promotion.
Pierre Arzounian leaves prop trading in energy for Alpiq in Switzerland to begin gas and energy trades at Millennium Capital Partners. Düsseldorf was Pierre’s former base, from a graduate programme with E.on to structured trading at its global commodities unit and developing weather products related to European gas and power markets as a Uniper trader.
Alpiq’s pick for Head of LNG is Jean-Christian Heintz, previously at the helm of LNG broking for Swiss commodities brokerage SCB. Before that he’d been two years with consultancy/trading company Wideangle LNG as MD, four years with DufEnergy Trading (now DXT Commodities) to create an LNG desk and more than three years at Engie in Paris as senior LNG trading manager.
Garth Edward moves from France to Singapore in becoming LNG Trading Manager for Aramco Trading after an LNG trader position with Engie. His career history also includes a tenure with PetroChina in LNG trading in addition to once having been a Shell trading manager and a Citigroup director.
In Spain, the new MD-Europe and Global Head-LNG Portfolio Management & Origination for Pavilion Energy is José Simón. José was recruited by Iberdrola in 1997 and stayed for 22 years, starting as corporate director of planning and subsequently appointed director of gas procurement until being put in charge of the group’s worldwide activities in LNG/natural gas and coal as well as managing its carbon dioxide emissions.
Our congratulations to Karsten Plauborg on becoming a VP at Danish fund management company Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. Until the move he’d been MD for Ørsted Global LNG. Between 2010-2020 he was also head of business development and partnerships for the group, so covering its name change from Dong Energy to Ørsted in 2017.
Peter Mackey is newly appointed Business Development Director for Avenir LNG in the UK. It’s the latest in a series of London-based roles for Peter, the most recent among them being MD of LDM Energy which he had founded to develop an Asian LNG project. That followed a General Electric appointment leading the GE Power team on LNG and a spell with Wood Mackenzie serving as head of gas and power consulting for EMEA, Russia and the Caspian region.
This year for Mark Tsirikos, having been part of the operations team at Dorian LPG, it is over to Cheniere Energy in London as LNG Trading Operator. Mark’s a former second officer on an Olympic Shipping oil tanker who has also handled operational details on Capesize and Panamax vessels for John Samonas & Sons.
LNG chartering executive Neil Marshall joins Mitsui Energy Trading in that capacity after filling a similar role for Total’s London desk since 2018. While with previous employer EDF Trading he was a gas/LNG operator also tasked with out-of-hours gas trading duties.
BP makes Michael Petty its latest LNG scheduler. Formerly he was an LNG account manager at Total Gas & Power in the UK, having joined the company in 2007 as an analyst working on gas transport contracts before his promotion to operator and supervisor capacities.
You can now add ECTP in Connecticut to Jennie Rosthal’s gas business résumé. EDF, Cumulus and DXT have been amongst her past employers since 2013. For Engelhart, she’s made Natural Gas Trader.
Louis Clements in New York City is newly appointed Analyst-Gas & Power Trading by Mitsui Bussan Commodities. Previously with SocGen’s SGCIB investment banking unit he was a trading analyst on energy derivatives.
See the write-up here from our recent analyst/strategist rewards survey with 200+ participants
This is merely a snapshot of some of the recent people moves and associated trends observed by our Gas & LNG research team at Commodity.
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