Oil traders sober up as Singapore event goes virtual: report

Annual Asia Pacific Petroleum Conference to be held virtually.

Fortunes have been made and lost in the oil market this year on an unprecedented scale, but it looks like the world’s traders will have to forgo their last chance to get together and celebrate or commiserate, according to a report from Bloomberg.

That’s because S&P Global Platts, the organiser of Singapore’s Annual Asia Pacific Petroleum Conference, announced that it’s going to hold the event virtually because of the coronavirus.

The gathering, in its 36th year, is the biggest of its kind in Asia and one of the industry’s three most important global conclaves. All three which have now been disrupted by the pandemic. London’s IP Week was significantly scaled back in February, whilst CERAWeek in Houston was canceled altogether days before it was due to start in March.

Whilst the official conferences host some of the biggest names in the industry and are major news events themselves, it’s the peripheral cocktail parties, private gatherings and lavish dinners that are the main draw for the traders, executives, brokers and consultants that make-up the closely-knit and interconnected world of oil trading.

Here’s more from Bloomberg.