Gunvor Group Ltd is a multinational energy commodities trading company registered in Cyprus, with its main trading office in Geneva, Switzerland. Gunvor also has trading offices in Singapore, Houston, Stamford, London and Dubai, with a network of representative offices around the globe. The company operates in the trade, transport, storage and optimization of petroleum and other energy products, as well as having investments in oil terminal and port facilities. Its operations consist of securing crude oil and petroleum products upstream and delivering it to market via pipelines and tankers. Gunvor has a separate company, Nyera, set up in 2021 to invest in renewable energy sources. It is run by energy transition director Fredrik Tornqvist.
The company, which was founded in 2000, is the fourth largest crude oil trader in the world after Glencore, Vitol, and Trafigura. The company was co-founded and controlled by Gennady Timchenko and Torbjörn Törnqvist (after whose mother the company is named); however, due to United States sanctions, Timchenko sold his entire stake in the company to Törnqvist in March 2014. Since then, Gunvor has focused on its international business, while Mr Timchenko retrenched to Russia, having nothing further to do with the company.
Today, Gunvor originates most of its crude oil from the Americas, with less than 5 percent coming from Russia. It also trades African, Asian, and South-American oil products and is active on all continents. Natural gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) accounted for 44% of the firm's traded volumes in 2021.
Early years
Gennady Timchenko and Torbjörn Törnqvist began working together in 1997, and formalized Gunvor in 2000. In 2003, the company started operations in Geneva.
According to the Financial Times, until 2007 the company was a "niche player" focused on exporting Russian oil through Estonia, relying on the expertise of its two founders in the oil business, Russian market and transit logistics. Torbjörn Törnqvist is a Swedish citizen born in 1953. He has traded oil across the world for over twenty years, beginning his career at BP. Gennady Timchenko is a Finnish citizen born in the Soviet Union in 1952. He has more than 20 years experience in the oil industry, beginning with the Kirishi refinery during perestroika, and was one of the first Russians to export oil to Europe after the Soviet Union collapsed.
In 2007, Gunvor's turnover was US$43 billion, with exports of 83 million tons of oil and petroleum products (up from 60 million tons in 2006). In 2010, the company's turnover grew to US$65 billion, up from US$53 billion in 2009, with volumes increasing to 104 million tons.
Logistics and infrastructures
Gunvor has invested in oil storages facilities, refineries, port facilities and terminals, therefore ensuring a "comparative advantage over their competitors", according to Törnqvist interviewed by the Financial Times. According to the company website, Gunvor owns its own shipping company, Clearlake Shipping Ltd, which shipped 30% of the Baltic crude oil (20.5 million tonnes) in 2006.
According to Nefte Compass, from February 2002 to February 2008, Russian oil exports through Gunvor increased sixteen times. The company controls 60% of the volume transiting through Estonia, and 41% of that transit via the port of Primorsk, Leningrad Oblast.
In 2009, Gunvor made major investments into physical assets such as oil terminals and facilities, the largest being into its oil export terminal in the port of Ust-Luga on the Baltic Sea, outside of St-Petersburg. In September 2009, the terminal was sold to Transneft.
In September 2009, Gunvor made its first direct investment in oil exploration when it purchased a 30% interest in Lagansky block in the Caspian sea from Lundin Petroleum. The field has proven reserves of over 230 million barrels of oil.
Gunvor also owns three major European refineries which are based in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. The Gunvor Petroleum Rotterdam refinery can process 88,000 barrels per day, while the Ingolstadt refinery located in Bavaria can handle 110,000 barrels per day and is supplied by the Transalpine Pipeline from the marine shipping terminal in Trieste, Italy. Gunvor also owns a large refinery with a capacity in excess of 100,000 barrels per day located in the north of the Port of Antwerp.
In 2021, the American chemical company Dow announced a plastics recycling program in partnership with Gunvor's Rotterdam refining operation.