Oil Brokerage closes physical distillates desk - sources
LONDON (Reuters) - London-based firm Oil Brokerage has closed its middle distillates desk, market sources told Reuters.
The closure of the desk, which according to the company's website opened in 2013, impacts two people, one of whom left the company. Its primary business focuses on physical and paper gasoline.
Oil Brokerage did not return requests for comment.
The move comes on the heels of fellow commodities broker Marex Spectron, which closed its own six-person distillates desk earlier this month.
Market sources said competition among brokers for business is intensifying as more distillates trading is going through the Intercontinental Exchange for paper, the Platts window for physical trades or directly between buyers and sellers.
"Most have been suffering on and reducing desk sizes," a trader said of distillate brokers. "I don't think they'll be the last to pull out."
(Reporting By Libby George, editing by David Evans)
