Oil futures drunk-trading incident

Event that cause significant fluctuation in oil prices

In the early morning of 30 June 2009, Steven Perkins, an employee of London-based PVM Oil Futures, traded 7 million barrels of oil – worth approximately US$520 million – while drunk. These unauthorised trades caused the price of Brent Crude oil to rise by over $1.50 a barrel within a short period of time, a trend generally associated with major geopolitical events, before dropping rapidly. As a result of the trading, PVM Oil Futures suffered losses of almost $10 million and Perkins was dismissed, later being banned from trading by the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

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