Banks, trading firms beef up carbon trading desks

LONDON (Reuters) - Several trading companies including Gunvor and Mercuria are beefing up their carbon emissions desks by hiring personnel from rival firms, industry sources told Reuters on Thursday.

Russian oil trading firm Gunvor International has hired Nyame de Groot, formerly vice president of emissions at Essent Trading, to work on its new emissions trading desk as part of a new global energy division, a Gunvor spokesman said.

The spokesman said a number of other former Essent Trading employees, including Paymon Aliabadi and Rob Alpen, had been hired by Gunvor, but could not give exact figures.

Essent Trading was not immediately available for comment.

On Tuesday, Amsterdam-based Gunvor said in a statement it had appointed Aliabadi to head the new division, which will help the company diversify out of oil by trading coal, freight, emissions, renewables, gas, LNG and power.

"We believe that there are major opportunities to be gained from this expansion and expect that the new division could number 50 members of staff over the next two years," Gunvor said.

Sources also told Reuters that Franck Bernard, formerly a carbon origination manager at Abu Dhabi's Masdar, will join Geneva-based Mercuria Energy Trading's emissions team.

A Mercuria spokesman would not comment on Bernard, but said the company was in the process of hiring several more emissions traders globally.

Mercuria has been trading carbon for several years, and last September it bought 713,000 Kyoto carbon offsets auctioned by two Brazilian landfill sites for 13.69 million euros ($19.56 million).

Emissions trader Jeroen Vlam has left London-based Saxon Financials based on a mutual agreement with the company, a company source told Reuters.

"Vlam was one of the bigger traders in the market," said another emissions trader, adding that he would not be surprised if his departure impacted trading volumes.

Vlam could not be reached for comment.

And equity analyst Ken Rumph, who focuses on carbon offset aggregators like EcoSecurities and Camco, this week joined Nomura Code Securities, a subsidiary of Japan's Nomura Group, from investment bank Noble GP.

"I'm now looking at the pan-European beat instead of just the UK," he told Reuters.

At least five London-based brokers have also entered the $126 billion global emissions trading market in the past year, despite depressed carbon prices and grim economic conditions. (Additional reporting by Nina Chestney; Editing by Sue Thomas)