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SINGAPORE (BLOOMBERG) – Four members of Singapore-based BP’s crude oil trading team left the company this week after more than two months of internal investigations into their involvement in various disputed deals, people with knowledge of the situation said. .
A manager of BP’s Asia business team, two oil traders and an originator were licensed in July after their names were mentioned in court documents filed by banks allegedly suspicious transactions between other trading houses. They left the company on September 30, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private.
A BP spokesman declined to comment on the matter. The affected staff had portfolios focused on the company’s oil sales to Chinese clients, while the manager oversaw the oil trade in the region. The details of the research findings remain unclear.
Its exits come amid intense scrutiny of highly opaque practices in Singapore, a hub for oil trading and financing, following the collapse of Hin Leong Trading and ZenRock Commodities Trading.
The oil company’s internal investigations began after the company and BP staff were named in court documents by units of CIMB Bank and Natixis against Hontop Energy (Singapore) and Sugih Energy International, now renamed Aeturnum Energy International.
In some documents, their names appeared in e-mail exchanges between commercial counterparts, although the oil company said it never agreed with some of those purchases and was never accused of wrongdoing.
This week, BP also asked employees to stop using China’s WeChat app on their work phones as a method of communication with market participants and their counterparts, the people said. The recommendation follows a similar move by US oil company Chevron in late September.
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