Where challenges become achievements…above the clouds, beyond the limits!
21 April 2026 On Sunday 19th April 2026, two of our colleagues set off on a journey that truly reflects what we stand for at Gapuma Group. Stephen Harris, our Group Operations Director, and Shahab Mossavat, Communications Adviser, will be representing Gapuma as Employee Ambassadors on an Outward Bound course at Ogwen Cottage, alongside students from West London Academy. For Stephen, this marks his sixth time volunteering — an outstanding show of commitment. From icy conditions during the “Beast from the East” to challenging mountain terrain, he continues to embody resilience and preparation. For Shahab, this is a meaningful return. As one of our very first ambassadors back in 2013, his journey now comes full circle as he ventures into Snowdonia once again. Set against the backdrop of the Glyderau mountains, this experience is all about building confidence, teamwork, and self-awareness—qualities we’re proud to champion through our partnership with The Outward Bound Trust (Kristina Spindler & Rose Albion). Stephen and Shahab, we wish you an unforgettable adventure. You represent the very best of Gapuma Group.
Gapuma at ChinaPlas 2026 – See You in Shanghai
16 April 2026 We are delighted to announce that Gapuma will be represented at ChinaPlas 2026 in Shanghai next week (21-24 April), where our Purchasing Director, Russell Brill, and Head of Polymers, Mihael Nahmias, will be in attendance. ChinaPlas is one of the most significant events in the global plastics and rubber industry calendar – a unique opportunity to connect with the brightest minds in the business, explore the latest innovations shaping our industry, and strengthen the relationships that drive it forward. For those of us who believe in the power of face-to-face dialogue, there is truly no substitute. Gapuma’s presence at events such as this reflects our enduring commitment to the industry we serve – a commitment to staying at the forefront of market developments, fostering long-term partnerships, and delivering the very best for our customers and suppliers across the globe. If you or your colleagues are also attending ChinaPlas this year, we would love to connect. Please do reach out to Russell or Mihael directly – we look forward to seeing you in Shanghai.
Our greatest assets don’t appear on any balance sheet
9 April 2026 At Gapuma Group, we have always believed that our people are our greatest competitive advantage. Long service is not merely a milestone — it is evidence of something deeper: trust, expertise, and a shared commitment to excellence that compounds in value with every passing year. Today, we are proud to celebrate two extraordinary colleagues who embody that spirit. 🎉 2 Years — and a very special announcement. We are delighted to share that Jing Zhang, one of our Procurement Officers, has been officially granted the right to stay and work in the UK under the Skilled Worker route. Jing’s meticulous approach to procurement has made her an indispensable part of our operations, and we could not be more pleased that she will continue to grow her career here at Gapuma. ✅ Visa approved ✅ Paperwork survived ✅ Time to celebrate A huge and heartfelt thank you to Stephen Harris — a true fixer of everything — for his patience, diligence, and expert navigation of the Home Office Portal throughout what has been an exceptionally lengthy process. His commitment to getting this right made all the difference. 🏆 Yanish — 11 Years of Service. A remarkable testament to dedication. 132 months. 574 weeks. 4,017 days. As one of our Business Development Managers specialising in West African and francophone markets, Yanish has been instrumental in building and nurturing some of Gapuma’s most strategically important commercial relationships. The depth of knowledge, cultural fluency, and hard-won trust that come with eleven years in that role cannot be overstated — and are precisely the qualities that set Gapuma apart in the markets we serve. Congratulations, Yanish, on this extraordinary milestone. Human capital is the true currency of a successful business. Individual expertise, institutional knowledge, and personal dedication cannot be replicated overnight — they are built, year after year, by people who choose to invest themselves in something bigger. We are enormously proud of each person who makes up the Gapuma family, and profoundly grateful for the unique contributions that sustain our winning formula. May you always be proud of the work you do, the person you are, and the difference you make. 💙
Welcome to Luka
7 April 2026 We are delighted to welcome Luka MacInnes-Bouffard to Gapuma as our new Junior Trader. Luka joins us from the UK Civil Service Fast Stream, where he was working as a Policy Analyst at the Home Office on Police Reform – a prestigious programme that many would be reluctant to leave. But Luka’s sights are firmly set on commodities, and we are very glad they are. As founder and president of the Oxford Commodities Society – the first of its kind at the university – and author of a Substack analysing global energy and commodity markets, he arrives with genuine passion for the sector as well as a sharp analytical mind. A first-class History graduate from Oxford, Luka will begin with a structured orientation period, shadowing our Operations, Finance and Trading divisions before taking up his core responsibilities: maintaining and developing our customer database and building relationships with our longstanding clients. He will be working under the guidance of our Purchasing Director, Russell Brill. In mid-May, Luka will also begin the Level 4 Diploma in International Trade with the Institute of Export and International Trade – a qualification that will provide a solid grounding in the practical disciplines that underpin everything we do at Gapuma. Please join us in wishing Luka every success. We think he is going to go far.
🐣 The Gapuma Spring Lunch – A Q1 Tradition Every year, as Easter approaches, the Gapuma London team pauses – just briefly – to come together, take stock of the quarter behind us, and look ahead to what’s coming. This year, that felt more important than ever. Q1 2026 has been, by any measure, one of the most turbulent quarters in recent memory. Shifting trade flows, geopolitical volatility, and markets that have kept all of us on our toes. There is plenty to reflect on – and plenty to plan for. But first, lunch – and this year, there was rather more to celebrate than usual. The table did not disappoint. Coronation chicken and smoked salmon finger sandwiches, brie & cranberry and mozzarella & pesto vegetarian platters, chicken pesto pasta salad, falafel with hummus, mixed wraps, a rather magnificent spread of patisserie, chocolate éclairs, cream puffs – and, of course, the Easter eggs that have become something of a Gapuma institution. Raised glasses went to Neha Sampat, Head of Operations, marking a remarkable 15 years with Gapuma – a tenure that speaks for itself. To Stephen Harris, Operations Director, on his birthday. And to Mike Short and Saju Mullumangalam, who both celebrated birthdays on 1st April – a happy coincidence that made the occasion all the more festive. We were also delighted to welcome Luka Bouffard-Innes, our newly recruited Junior Trader, to his first Gapuma Spring Lunch – a proper rite of passage. And there was a very welcome surprise when Group Managing Director Jack Bardakjian made a flying visit, which lifted the room considerably. At Gapuma, we believe that a team which eats together, thinks together. Here’s to Q2.
Is comprehensive globalism over?
What the Iran War means for physical commodity traders 24 March 2026 The Financial Times has been asking hard questions about the structural shift now under way in global business – and the conclusions demand attention from anyone in physical commodities. FT chief economics commentator Martin Wolf is unambiguous: “The worst case is that this will be one of the biggest shocks in the postwar period.” Meanwhile, FT columnist Tej Parikh cuts to a deeper vulnerability: “Investors have committed trillions of dollars to the technology, one of the most power-hungry inventions ever, on the assumption of ample energy supplies and a slick chip production line that can cross more than 70 borders before reaching the final consumer. But the Iran war is exposing the fragilities in the AI supply chain.” If that assumption of frictionless global logistics is now in doubt for the digital economy, it raises an equally sharp question for physical commodity traders: is the model of seamless, borderless trade still viable? The honest answer is: not unconditionally. The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has demonstrated that a single chokepoint can simultaneously disrupt energy, fertiliser, industrial gases and shipping insurance markets. Supply chains engineered for efficiency rather than resilience are being exposed for what they are. Three conclusions stand out. Hyper-globalised sourcing is a liability without redundancy built in. Global trade is not over, but it is being repriced around risk. And those with established local distribution networks are navigating this crisis measurably better than those dependent on long, centralised chains. Jack Bardakjian, Group Managing Director of Gapuma Group, is direct on this point: “Every experienced commodity trader understands that price is only half the equation – the other half is access. When the architecture of global trade is under this kind of stress, access becomes everything. Local presence, local relationships, local knowledge – these are not peripheral considerations. They are the hard infrastructure of the business.” The world will trade again. But the terms on which it does so are being rewritten. Primary source: Financial Times, 12 March 2026, and related FT reporting
Appointment Announcement | Rafael Fraletti as Head of Biofuels
19 March 2026 We are delighted to announce the appointment of Rafael Fraletti as Head of Biofuels, and Head of our Nyon Branch Office. Based in Geneva for the past three years, Rafael brings nearly a decade of experience in global biofuels trading. Before joining Gapuma, he spent seven years at Raízen – one of the world’s leading energy and biofuels groups – where he built an exceptional track record across international ethanol markets, first in Brazil and subsequently in Switzerland, with a particular focus on the European landscape. Over the past 15 months at Gapuma, Rafael has been instrumental in developing new trading flows, strengthening commercial relationships, and expanding the company’s footprint across key biofuel markets. He has played a central role in structuring and scaling our biofuels platform, and this appointment reflects both the confidence we place in him and the momentum the business has built under his contribution. In his new role, Rafael will lead the strategy and continued growth of our biofuels business, as well as overseeing operations at our Nyon branch. Rafael is motivated by a clear ambition: to position Gapuma not merely as a reliable supplier, but as a committed counterparty – one that actively contributes to the development and expansion of biofuels markets within the global decarbonisation agenda. That mission sits at the heart of everything we are building here. We look forward to the next chapter.
The 25-Year Gamble: Who Really Wins When Corporations Build the Roads?
Rates Waived, Questions Raised By: Shahab Mossavat 18 March 2026 A £4bn gigafactory. A 25-year business rates waiver. A council that says there is nothing to worry about. The announcement that Agratas – Tata Group’s battery business, building the UK’s biggest EV gigafactory near Bridgwater in Somerset – will fund £150m of local infrastructure improvements in lieu of paying business rates for a quarter of a century is being presented as a clean swap. Somerset Council borrows nothing. Agratas builds the roads. Everyone wins. But is it really that simple? The core question is one that economic development professionals should be asking far more loudly: does a single upfront corporate investment deliver better long-term value for a local economy than a sustained, predictable stream of tax revenue? And if the answer to that is genuinely uncertain – which it is – how can anyone responsibly sign off a 25-year calculation? Business rates, for all their much-criticised rigidity, are flexible in one crucial respect: they respond to revaluations. A thriving facility pays more as its rateable value rises. Rates revenue compounds with economic success. A fixed £150m infrastructure deal, agreed today, does not. Consider the variables that no one can reliably model over 25 years: inflation, interest rates, the pace of EV adoption, Tata Group’s strategic priorities, the shifting competitive landscape for battery manufacturing, the ongoing government review of the entire business rates system. The Transforming Business Rates interim report, published as recently as September 2025, acknowledged that the system itself is under fundamental redesign. Somerset is locking in a deal built on a framework that may look very different by 2030. Council leader Bill Revans says the deal eliminates a “small amount of risk” by removing the council’s exposure to interest rate movements on a loan. That is true, as far as it goes. But it substitutes one risk for several others: the risk that £150m of roads and training provision proves inadequate as the factory scales; the risk that Agratas’s needs evolve in ways Somerset’s infrastructure cannot accommodate; the risk – and this is the one rarely discussed openly – that a corporation’s priorities change. The Government’s own infrastructure analysis is instructive here. Large upfront costs deliver benefits that can take decades to materialise – and can just as easily fail to materialise at all. Japan spent trillions on prestige infrastructure and built bridges to nowhere. Spain constructed airports that saw no planes. The presence of steel and tarmac does not guarantee the economic activity that was supposed to justify it. None of this is to say the Agratas deal is wrong. A £4bn factory, up to 4,000 jobs, and an anchor role in the UK’s EV supply chain is a transformative prize for Somerset. The council may well have made the right call. But “the right call” and “a rigorously tested 25-year financial model” are not the same thing, and the distinction matters. As more corporations – often with the blessing of enterprise zone designations – look to substitute upfront infrastructure investment for ongoing tax obligations, local authorities need independent analytical frameworks to evaluate these deals properly. The asymmetry of information and negotiating power between a global conglomerate and a county council is considerable. The question we should all be asking is not whether Agratas is a good corporate citizen – by all accounts it is working hard to embed itself in the Somerset community. The question is structural: when a company writes the cheque for the roads it needs to operate, who is really getting the better end of the deal? Twenty-five years is a long time. It would be reassuring to know that someone has done the maths with genuine rigour – and published it.
Charles Percehron – Our Energy Expert Speaks to Le Monde
17 March 2026 Below is an article published by Le Monde. It features our colleague Charles PERCHERON, and Kpler and its work using the latest technology to help map energy flows; highly recommended reading in the current geo-political context in the Persian Gulf. https://lnkd.in/e6kgDGAn
The Strait That Broke the World’s Confidence
17 March 2026 The Strait of Hormuz – a corridor barely 33 miles wide at its narrowest – has not just closed to commercial traffic. It has exposed the paper-thin foundation on which the modern world’s energy economy is built. At Gapuma Group, we are watching this unfold in real time. The disruption is not abstract. It is operational. War risk insurance has been cancelled wholesale by underwriters. Freight rates on some routes have surged by over 600%. Several of our counterparties in the region cannot get cover at any premium. Ships that could move cargo are sitting still because no insurer will touch them. The numbers behind the closure are stark. Around a quarter of the world’s daily oil consumption and a fifth of its LNG pass through that single waterway. Qatar has halted LNG production. Iraq has cut crude output. Jet fuel premiums in Europe and Asia have hit record highs. TTF gas prices rallied 70% in less than a week. But beyond the immediate crisis lies the more troubling long-term question: should we still be this exposed? The Gulf states have spent the last decade building a compelling alternative model – the “Dubai model” of tourism, logistics, and technology. The World Bank and World Economic Forum were praising their economic resilience as recently as late 2025. That narrative has aged badly in a fortnight. The honest answer is that a post-oil world is desirable, inevitable – and currently unaffordable at the speed events are demanding. Renewables cannot be scaled overnight. Biofuels offer partial relief – and notably, marine biofuels have held steady where fossil fuel equivalents have spiralled. But the infrastructure, the capital, and the political will for genuine energy independence remain incomplete. For commodities trading, the lesson is blunt: diversification of supply, route, and risk is not a future aspiration. It is an immediate imperative.
The Hidden Cost of Oil: Not Just the Climate – But War Itself
10 March 2026 We talk endlessly about fossil fuels and the environment. We talk rather less about something arguably more urgent: the direct link between hydrocarbon dependency and geopolitical instability. The argument is straightforward, if uncomfortable. So long as the global economy runs on oil and gas, the nations and actors who control supply routes hold the rest of the world to ransom. That is not a metaphor. It is a strategic reality – and Iran has been demonstrating it with considerable precision. The Strait of Hormuz, the narrow chokepoint through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil passes, has become Tehran’s lever of choice. Drone attacks on tankers, threats to close the strait entirely, the targeting of production infrastructure across the Persian Gulf – these are not random provocations. They are the deliberate weaponisation of energy dependency. When a single nation-state can destabilise global markets, trigger inflationary shockwaves across Europe and threaten the energy security of dozens of countries simultaneously, the political cost of fossil fuel reliance becomes starkly visible. The economic arguments for hydrocarbons have always been well rehearsed: they are energy-dense, relatively cheap, and the existing infrastructure around them is vast. Transition is genuinely hard. But the geopolitical calculus is shifting. OPEC’s grip has loosened, drilling technology has advanced, and new supply sources have emerged. Yet dependency endures – and with it, vulnerability. The climate case for moving beyond oil and gas has been made, repeatedly and compellingly. The security case is equally powerful, and perhaps more immediately persuasive to those who remain unmoved by environmental argument. Every barrel of oil that can be replaced by domestic renewable generation is a barrel that cannot be held hostage. Energy transition is not merely an environmental imperative. It is a peace dividend waiting to be collected.