Stuart Burt, a gasoline trader in the Gulf Coast and New York Harbor market, resigned from ATMI on Wednesday, and he will join Noble in Houston.   
The rapid expansion in the U.S. trading arena is pushing Noble closer to rival the top three independent oil trading companies — Vitol, Glencore and Trafigura — in terms of volume and market coverage.   
In the past few months, Noble has hired a slew of at least six oil products traders for both trading offices in Houston and Stamford. The increased number of oil traders at Noble will help the company boost products trading volumes in the U.S. as well as connect the dots across the country.   
In the short span of a few years, Noble Americas has expanded its reach from the home base in the Northeast to the Midwest, Gulf Coast, West Texas and the West Coast via terminaling asset acquisitions and hiring of new oil traders.     
In May, Noble hired Steve Hollerbach, ex-global gasoline lead for ConocoPhillips.   That was followed by the August hiring of Adrian Tolson, ex-Chemoil senior executive, as the global head of bunker sales at Noble in Stamford.   In September, Noble hired Sergi Nakaidze, an ex-West Coast gasoline pipeline trader at ConocoPhillips, and Sean Werber, an ex-scheduler/blender for Gulf Coast and West Coast markets from ConocoPhillips.   Also, Mike Henry, an ex-New York Harbor and Laurel pipeline gasoline trader at ConocoPhillips, joined Noble.   All ex-ConocoPhillips gasoline traders at Noble are based in Houston.   
The start of Noble’s aggressive products expansion could be traced to the key hiring of Olaf Refvik as new global head of crude and oil products trading late last year. Sources said that Refvik is tasked to boost Noble’s oil trading presence and volume to rival Vitol, Glencore and Trafigura.   
In 2010, Noble bought Northville South, which was essentially the distillates trading and blending business Northville bought from California-based Mieco, a subsidiary of Marubeni, in 2004. The deal was worth $80 million.   The Northville South acquisition gives Noble access to an additional 3.7 million bbl of storage in Pasadena and the Midcontinent, as well as supply contracts with key U.S. Gulf Coast refiners and a wholesale marketing system in the Magellan, Plantation and Teppco pipeline systems providing a distribution system.   
In 2009, Noble bought all five Semfuel asset groups, including terminals and rack supply contracts, in the Midwest for $65.35 million.   Both Northville South and Semfuel deals gave Noble instant trading and supply presence on the Gulf Coast and Midwest, respectively.   
Noble has already begun trading oil products on the West Coast, completing its plan to trade from coast to coast.