World’s Biggest Physical Oil Trader Warns of Months of Price Volatility

April 20, 2026

Seasonally lower demand ahead of the peak summer driving season and the continued turbulence in the Middle East could extend the violent oil price swings for months ahead, the top executive of oil trader Gunvor has told the Financial Times.

“It is a little bit of a more challenging, softer period that we need to be careful of,” Gary Pedersen, chairman and CEO of Gunvor Group, told FT in an interview published on Monday.

“Frankly, it could be very choppy,” commented on the oil market Pedersen, who took over the top job at one of the world’s biggest physical oil trading groups after a management buy-out in December 2025.

Before the big shake-up at the group, Gunvor was accused by the U.S. Treasury Department of being a Kremlin puppet and was denied a license to take over the international operations of Russia’s second-largest oil producer Lukoil, which the United States sanctioned last autumn.

The recent violent swings in oil futures prices were partly due to what Gunvor’s new head Pedersen attributed in the FT interview to a “masterclass” in political messaging from U.S. President Donald Trump.

Oil futures prices have sold off sharply several times in recent weeks following various comments from President Trump that a deal with Iran is imminent or the war is “very close to over”.

But oil futures markets haven’t fully priced in the major disruption to physical supply that has crashed with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the severely constrained Middle Eastern crude and fuel supply.

Physical crude supplies remain very tight as buyers across the world scramble for replacement of the oil from the Middle East, Gunvor’s Pedersen told FT.

In a sign that buyers are rushing to lock in supply, empty supertankers have left Asia en route to the U.S. via the Cape of Good Hope in one of the biggest queues of vessels ever seen at sea—ships sent to load U.S. crude.

Oilprice.com