TRADER NOTE: Westport fuel oil traders head to Louis Dreyfus

TRADER NOTE: Hector Ramirez, Alex Kopko and Robert Carr will leave Westport Petroleum's US office in Nashville in mid-May to move to Louis Dreyfus in Houston to set up Louis Dreyfus' new fuel oil trading unit, sources said Monday. Paul Taylor will take over fuel oil trading for Westport.

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TRADER NOTE: Two key fuel oil traders, Chuck Grimm and Robert Fuchs, at Westport Petroleum's Singapore office have resigned to join global trading outfit Louis Dreyfus as vice presidents of trading for Asia, market sources said Friday. Their last working day is Friday, May 4. Grimm was general manager for fuel and feedstock trading, and had been with the company for about four years. Fuchs had been with Westport for around 20 years and was regional director. Both will start work in June at Louis Dreyfus. Also leaving Westport Singapore for Louis Dreyfus is senior operations manager Jeffrey Victor. He had been with Westport for 10 years. Four other Westport staff, based in the US, will also be leaving for Louis Dreyfus.

TRADER NOTE: Jonathan Fancher has left the Monaco office of Bermuda-registered AIC Ltd, a source at the company said Wednesday. Fancher had been trading ULSD and gasoil barges at the company.

TRADER NOTE: J Aron Singapore crude trader Raymond Yang left the company last week and is expected to join Vitol in June as a gasoil trader, sources said Wednesday. Yang was with J Aron for several years trading crude oil swaps.

TRADER NOTE: JP Morgan Ventures Energy swaps trader Gerald Woon left the company some three weeks ago, sources said this week. Woon joined the company in 2010 after JP Morgan Chase bought RBS Sempra Commodities that year.

TRADER NOTE: Shell's middle distillates trader Candy Yam has left the oil major's Singapore office about a month ago, sources said this week. Yam had been trading middle distillates for around 5 years at Shell.

TRADER NOTE: Banca IMI says trader Nicola Ventura joined Eni last week, taking up a trading role on the derivatives desk in the Italian oil company's London office. His coverage will include diesel, 0.1% gasoil, and ICE Gasoil paper. He was previously with Banca IMI, the investment arm of Italian banking group Banca Intesa, for six years. Eni could not be reached for comment.

TRADER NOTE: J Aron Singapore trader Joshua Lim left the company about a month ago and is expected to join Mercuria in Singapore sometime in July, sources said late this week. Apart from trading middle distillates for J Aron, Lim was also trading light distillates as well as LPG.

TRADER NOTE: Glencore Singapore's gasoline trading manager Eric Ong left the company in the week of April 9, sources said late this week. Ong had been trading gasoline for around 12 years at Glencore and worked previously with Shell.

TRADER NOTE: US-based tanker pool operator Heidmar has appointed Marc La Monte as president and CEO to succeed Tim Brennan, who quit in January, the company said in a statement late Wednesday. La Monte joined Heidmar in 2010, and headed the company's VLCC pool, Seawolf Tankers, the company said. Before that, he was with Overseas Shipholding Group, where he headed the LNG business unit. Heidmar, which manages more than 120 tankers, also appointed Per Heilmann as executive vice president and chief risk officer. Per Heilmann was vice president earlier, having worked with the company for 10 years. He was responsible for derivatives trading and risk management.

TRADER NOTE: Fal Oil Asia Pte Ltd's general manager of oil trading, GS Teh, has left the company, as of March 31, sources said Tuesday. The departure comes amid the company's move to place its Asia trading entity into dormancy. The process has yet to be completed and there was no specific date for the dormancy process to be completed. Teh remains a director of the company, though he is no longer an official employee. The directorship will likely cease when the Asia entity is officially declared dormant. In November last year, Fal Oil Asia saw two fuel oil traders resign -- Wong Kai Yee and Ong Eng Hian. Wong joined Unipec Singapore and Ong joined Koch Refining, both as fuel oil traders.

TRADER NOTE: Nik Domanski has left Merrill Lynch, having previously worked on the North Sea desk in London.

TRADER NOTE: Billy Fisher has left Noble Clean Fuels Limited, having previously worked on the North Sea desk in London.

TRADER NOTE: Fuel oil trader Peter Tan Chwee Hwa has left Coastal Oil Singapore for DBS Bank, where he is now senior vice president of commodity derivatives. Tan left Coastal mid-March, where he had been for six months. Prior to that, he was a physical trading manager at PetroSeraya for 13 years.

TRADER NOTE: Braskem America Monday named Fernando Musa as the new CEO. Musa succeeds Luiz de Mendonca, who has become CEO of ETH Bioenergia. Musa previously served as vice president of planning, IT, and purchasing for Braskem South America.

TRADER NOTE: Shell's fuel oil trading team leader in Asia, Dominique Laborde, has left the company for European trading company Vitol, industry sources said. Laborde, a 15-year veteran with Shell, left the oil major's Singapore office at the beginning of March and is due to start at Vitol's office in Houston, US, in the middle of the year, sources said. Laborde's predecessor at Shell in Singapore, Jurgen van Herk, also left the company for Vitol. Van Herk, who was Shell's team leader for fuel oil and feedstock in Singapore, left the major in April last year and joined Vitol's Singapore office as a trading manager of fuel oil in August. Laborde has been at Shell's Singapore office since April 2009. Following his departure earlier this month, Shell fuel oil trader Guido Sjibers has been designated acting team leader, according to sources.

TRADER NOTE: South Korea's third-largest refiner, S-Oil, Monday appointed Nasser Al-Mahasher, a senior Saudi Aramco official in Tokyo, as its new chief executive officer. The company's board of directors and shareholder have approved the appointment of the 52-year-old Saudi national, who has held key positions in refining, corporate and marketing operations Saudi Aramco since joining in 1990, S-Oil said in a statement Monday. His most recent position was president of Saudi Petroleum Limited Tokyo, a unit of the Saudi Arabian state-run oil company. Al-Mahasher will replace Ahmed Subaey, also a Saudi national, for a four-year term beginning Monday, S-Oil said. Saudi Aramco Overseas Company is the biggest stakeholder in S-Oil, with a 35% stake.

TRADER NOTE: Singapore-listed marine fuel supplier Chemoil Energy's chief financial officer and chief operating officer Mats Henrik Berglund has resigned, the company said in a filing to the Singapore Exchange late Thursday. Berglund will be taking up a "new appointment as chief executive officer of Pacific Basin Shipping Limited in Hong Kong," the statement added. He has been with Chemoil since March 2011. Berglund is expected to join Pacific Basin Shipping between April 20 and July 3 this year, Pacific Basin said in a statement.

TRADER NOTE: Dennis Murphy has joined the Houston office of Trafigura AG as a North American residul fuel oil trader, effective March 19, 2012. Murphy came from Westport Petroleum, where he also was a fuel oil trader.

TRADER NOTE: An ExxonMobil executive at Saudi Arabia's Yanbu refinery will take over as the chief executive of Swedish refiner Preem Petroleum in April after the refiner's current CEO, Michael Low, retires, Preem said. Working with ExxonMobil since 1984, Norwegian-born Petter Holland's latest position was executive vice president for manufacturing at Exxon's 400,000 b/d Yanbu refinery with Saudi Aramco. Holland was previously the manager at Exxon's Slagen refinery in Norway. Low became Preem's CEO in January 2003. Prior to joining Preem, he worked for ConocoPhillips where he held a number of top management positions. Low will continue to be a member of the Preem board, the company said.

TRADER NOTE: Singapore-based Akio Yamaguchi has left Koch and is heard to be joining Total's Singapore office as a naphtha trader replacing Hans Koo, who is now trading naphtha with Gunvor Singapore. Yamaguchi was previously based in Geneva, also with Koch.

TRADER NOTE: Chua Wee Li commenced work at Itochu Petroleum Company Singapore March 1 as trading manager for middle distillates. Prior to joining Itochu, Chua was with Lukoil Asia Pacific for almost eight years.

TRADER NOTE: Hans Koo has joined the naphtha desk at Gunvor Singapore Pvt. Ltd. He was previously with Total for five years, where he traded naphtha as well as condensate.