Every week we see the same script. Someone emails asking for trade finance on a “secured” EN590, Jet A1, Mazut, or Bonny Light deal. Their buyer has “allocation” from a “refinery mandate” at a double digit discount, risk free. All they need is a little financial magic to close and clear a thirty percent margin. On paper they are about to make eight figures from their laptop and a WhatsApp group. In reality, the entire chain from “seller” to “buyer” is smoke.
The story usually starts with a forwarded “soft offer” full of buzzwords: EN590 10 ppm, FOB Rotterdam or CIF ASWP, tank-to-tank, 30 percent off Platts, performance bond, NCNDA, IMFPA, and a list of mandates longer than the contract. By the time the email reaches us, there are eight brokers in the chain. No one has seen a refinery, a terminal lease, or a real bank officer. Everyone expects a slice of a profit that does not exist.
To see why there is no space for random broker chains, you need a basic view of the petroleum supply chain. Barrel flows and product flows are tied from wellhead to refinery to tank and end customer. Credit, operations, and risk management are wired into that system. A Google Drive soft offer is not.
| Step | What Happens In Real EN590 / Jet A1 / Crude Trading |
|---|---|
| 1) Production And Refining | Crude oil is produced by national oil companies and majors. It is sold via long term term contracts and spot tenders to a small group of recognised traders and refiners. EN590, Jet A1, and Mazut come out of refineries that already have committed offtake with those traders and with fuel distributors. |
| 2) Term Contracts And Allocation | Term volumes and optional cargoes are allocated to counterparties with credit limits, KYC cleared, and long track records. “Allocation” is not a PDF on WhatsApp; it is a signed contract in a trading and risk system, often backed by prepayment, P&L limits, and hedging. |
| 3) Storage, Logistics, And Shipping | Real traders lease tanks, slots, or pipeline capacity at terminals. They book ships through chartering desks that sit inside or alongside their trading teams. Loading windows, laycans, demurrage, and Q&Q all sit inside a tight operational schedule, not in a random broker chain email. |
| 4) Credit And Risk | Banks extend borrowing base lines, LC facilities, and hedging limits to traders with audited accounts and risk management structures. Every cargo is checked against VaR, credit exposure, and liquidity plans. No bank sets aside hundreds of millions for a buyer nobody has heard of just because a broker chain promises 30 percent margin. |
| 5) Sales To End Buyers | Fuel distributors, airlines, utilities, and industrial buyers buy from refiners or large traders on contracts tied to benchmarks such as Platts or Argus with realistic differentials. Volumes reflect actual demand and infrastructure, not fantasy requests for “two million barrels per month CIF any safe world port.” |
When you see an EN590 or Jet A1 broker chain with ten intermediaries and no balance sheet, you are not seeing a hidden corner of the oil market. You are staring at a side show designed to extract small fees from people who do not understand how hard real trading is.
| Claim From Broker Chains | Market Reality |
|---|---|
| “Genuine seller” sells via long broker chains. | Real sellers and majors work with a short list of vetted counterparties. If a buyer has the credit, track record, and logistics, the seller speaks to them or to one mandated intermediary, not to a Telegram swarm of unknown brokers. |
| “Genuine buyer” seeks huge volumes at massive discounts. | Real buyers focus on security of supply, quality, credit terms, and basis points of margin. They do not ask for millions of barrels at thirty percent off screen prices, because they know those barrels would be gone instantly to the trading houses that pay on time and hedge properly. |
| “We only need trade finance or an SBLC to close.” | Banks and credit funds examine the full chain: seller, buyer, title, logistics, and price. A deal with fake counterparties and no credible operator does not get funded. The only capital that ever moves is the “registration fee” paid by a hopeful middleman to the scammers. |
| “Everyone in the chain gets paid a commission.” | Genuine deals have tight spreads and a small number of paid parties. Risk desks know exactly who is involved. A chain of ten brokers with no clear role is a sign that nobody controls the cargo and no bank is behind the trade. |
We see the end result of this machinery in our inbox. Requests for trade finance tied to a “seller” in Rotterdam, a “buyer” in West Africa, and a parade of brokers that somehow discovered an unbeatable arbitrage. The pitch is always the same: finance one cargo, roll the profit, and soon they will be making “ten gazillion a year” reselling petroleum products they have never touched, at a guaranteed thirty percent margin.
None of these files survive even basic questions: Who is the seller on paper? Which bank will issue or receive a letter of credit? Who holds the tank lease? Which benchmark is used? Who hedges the price risk? Silence. Screenshots of passports, random “certificates,” and NCNDAs appear instead of audited accounts and credit approvals. The only people making money here are the ones charging fees for documents, registrations, and fictitious inspections.
Real traders push volumes because they have capital, credit, operations teams, and risk systems. They price, hedge, and deliver cargo in a way that leaves no space for fantasy margins or amateur interference.
The spreads in EN590 and Jet A1 are measured in dollars per tonne or cents per gallon, not in fantasy percentages. Competition between majors, national oil companies, and trading houses compresses margins down to levels that only make sense with scale, funding, and tight execution. Any supposed thirty percent gap would be closed instantly by professionals with real tanks, ships, and balance sheets. If they are not touching it, it is not real.
If you have a supposed EN590, Jet A1, Mazut, or crude oil opportunity and want an honest view on whether it matches real market practice, share a short outline of the counterparties, volumes, structure, and pricing. We can tell you quickly if it stands a chance in front of lenders and genuine traders, or if you are looking at another broker chain fantasy.
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