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Adrian Tolson, former Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Chemoil Energy, has joined commodity trading entity and bunker supplier Noble Group.

Tolson began his new role as Marketing Director of Oil Liquids at the beginning of this week. The news follows Tolson's decision to resign from Chemoil earlier this year after having been with the company for 25 years.

His departure came during a period when Chemoil also lost Global Business Development Manager, Keith Richardson, from the San Francisco office in January, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Jerry Lorenzo, from the Singapore office in March, and George Pence, Manager of Sales and Marketing in the United States,in June.

Noble began its fuel oil trading business in April 2009, after hiring five former Trafigura traders, headed by Magd Mohaffel, Trafigura's former global head of fuel oil. The company also hired teams to trade other oil products in the Asian market, including naphtha, distillates and gasoline.

A key part of Noble's fuel oil trading strategy between 2009 and 2010 had been its search for a long-term storage lease. Despite a jump in commercial capacity, Noble found that existing storage tanks had already been taken on long-term leases.

Following several months searching for a supertanker to lease, Noble hired the converted Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) Hercules from Malaysia's Arus Dermaga, during the second quarter of 2010.

The 270,000-tonne capacity vessel was anchored off Malaysia's Tanjung Pelepas port, having begun operations at the start of April 2010.

Noble commenced selling bunker fuel to customers in Singapore last year. The group's Singapore branch, Noble Resources Pte Ltd, is an accredited bunker supplier at the world's leading bunker port.

The arrival of Tolson would appear to signal an important step up in Noble’s ambitions in the bunker fuel sector. Tolson, who will work out of the group's office in Stamford, Connecticut, has been brought in to develop the group's bunkering business and look for opportunities to build its presence in the market.