Trafigura Aims to Boost Metals Trading With Iran

Trafigura Group Ltd., the world’s second-biggest metals trader, wants to increase business with post-sanctions Iran.

The Singapore-based trading house is seeking to hire a Persian-speaking executive for its refined metals division to work with its traders to “identify, analyze, assess and propose business opportunities in the Persian Gulf, especially within the rapidly changing Iranian market”, according to a job posting on Trafigura’s website, Bloomberg reported.

The candidate will be expected to “understand the opportunities arising from the liberalization of the Iranian metals market,” Trafigura said in the advertisement.

The job will “involve significant traveling to build relationships with key players in Iran,” it added.

Trafigura and other commodity traders, including Rotterdam’s Vitol Group, the largest independent oil trader, have reentered Iran after the US and European Union lifted sanctions imposed over the country’s nuclear program back in January.

Trading houses largely stopped dealing in Iranian oil and refined products in 2012 and 2013 after a new round of sanctions. Glencore Plc and Trafigura supplied alumina to Iranian firms, according to a UN report in 2013.

Wood Mackenzie Ltd. expects Iran’s copper demand to grow by 3-4% a year in the short to medium term, the consulting firm said in a recent report.

A Trafigura spokeswoman in Geneva declined to comment on the new job posting.

The candidate for the position, which is to be based in Geneva, will be tasked to “develop relationships with metals producers, processors, transporters across the Middle East and especially Iran”, Trafigura said.