Oil futures drunk-trading incident

The oil futures drunk-trading incident was an incident in which Steven Perkins,[1] an employee of London-based PVM Oil Futures, traded 7 million barrels (1.1 million cubic metres) of oil, worth approximately US$520 million (£340 million) in a two-and-half-hour period in the early morning of 30 June 2009 while drunk. These unauthorised trades caused the price of Brent Crude oil to rise by over $1.50 a barrel (equivalent to $2.13 in 2023) within a short period of time, a trend generally associated with major geopolitical events, before dropping rapidly. As a result of the trading, PVM Oil Futures suffered losses of almost $10 million and Perkins was dismissed, later being banned from trading by the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

  1. ^ Treanor, Jill (29 June 2010). "Drunk trader banned for buying 17m barrels of oil after binge". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2 January 2015. Retrieved 26 August 2011.