Novitsky traded fuel oil and crude oil at PetroChina, and he was in charge of setting up the company’s trading office in Houston in 2008. He had worked at PetroChina for about 10 years.

At this new job in Buckeye, Novitsky will be the vice-president of commercial development for global marine terminals. He will start work at Buckeye on July 23.

Earlier this year, OPIS reported that PetroChina, the listed arm of China’s largest state-owned gas and oil producer, China National Petroleum Company, had gotten back on track to fulfilling its aim to trade across the barrel and across the globe, following a setback when it saw mass resignations of eight oil traders in Houston in May 2013.

That exodus of traders left the company with just three traders to trade crude and fuel oil in Houston.

Fast forward one year, PetroChina has rebounded and rebuilt its oil trading operations in the Americas. In the past year, PetroChina has hired a total of 26 new personnel in four offices – Houston, Calgary, Caracas and Jersey City. Eighteen of the new hires are for commercial operations, including trading, scheduling and shipping.

Seizing enterprising opportunities in the rapidly growing domestic crude and natural gas production, PetroChina has added a new natural gas trading team, and expanded its crude and condensate trading team to seven traders in Houston.

PetroChina is now beginning to rebuild its oil products trading team in Houston after hiring David Botchlet recently to spearhead this effort. Botchlet is the head of products trading at PetroChina, leading a team of two traders. Prior to joining PetroChina, Botchlet worked at Delphi Petroleum and Enron.

PetroChina plans to add more products trading personnel to trade all clean oil products.

Last year, PetroChina traded gasoline and distillates on the Colonial pipeline and Plantation pipeline as well as Charleston and Gulf Coast markets. It also had a presence in the Caribbean supply market.

The products trading environment in the U.S. has been challenging, but PetroChina’s U.S. trading operations have been one of the top performers in the international trading division within the company.

For fuel oil, PetroChina also faced a similar tough market environment, which is weighed down by a lack of consistent arbitrage opportunities to Asia and poor demand.

Currently, PetroChina’s head count in the Americas is pegged at 95, 63 of which are based in Houston. This is compared with only three when the company first opened its Houston office in 2008.

In Houston, the crude trading team is focused on domestic pipeline trading. The 
company has crude storage tank space in Cushing, Okla.

In Calgary, PetroChina has 22 employees who are focused on Canadian crude trading and deliveries on the Trans Mountain Pipeline to the U.S. West Coast.

In Caracas, the company has five trading personnel who are in charge of Venezuelan crude and fuel oil trading as well trading of crude from Colombia and Ecuador.

PetroChina ships crude to Asia and China on a regular basis, but it has also expanded its crude shipping options to the Ineos’ refining system in France and Scotland via its joint-venture agreement with Ineos.

For natural gas, PetroChina has eight traders in Calgary and Houston. The company is looking at liquefied natural gas business opportunity, and it does not have any plans to trade liquefied petroleum gas so far.

Meanwhile, PetroChina’s name has been linked to several refinery or terminal asset sales in the U.S. and the Caribbean.

The company is still looking for the right assets at the right price. The expected scrutiny of Congress on any Chinese company’s potential purchase of U.S. strategic assets, like Russian companies, is not expected to deter PetroChina from acquiring U.S. assets if it is the right fit and price.