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Gunvor becomes the second commodities trading house to support EITI

Gunvor becomes the second commodities trading house to support EITI

Oslo, 18 April 2018 -  Gunvor Group, one of the world’s leading commodity trading firms, today announced its support of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), the global standard for governance of the natural resources.

The EITI welcomed Gunvor’s commitment and called on more commodity traders to join the work towards comprehensive and practical reporting guidelines that would bring more transparency and accountability to the sector.

Jonas Moberg, Executive Director of the EITI, said: 

“We welcome Gunvor’s support of the EITI. We hope that this will spur further progress towards improved accountability in the commodity trading industry." 

Improved EITI reporting

Gunvor will be releasing their disclosure policy in the coming weeks and will be disclosing trading data in their annual Group Sustainability Report. In practice, Gunvor’s policy means that they will disclose their payments to governments in accordance with the approach adopted by the EITI multi-stakeholder group in each implementing country. This should result in improved EITI reporting, as the government receipts can be reconciled with Gunvor’s reports.

Jonas Moberg added:

“With the increased focus on the trading of oil, gas and minerals, disclosure of payments to government has to improve. The EITI is a key starting point to ensure that the citizens have access to the key information. We encourage other trading houses to join Gunvor and Trafigura in supporting the EITI.”

Torbjörn Törnqvist, Gunvor Chief Executive Officer said:

“Gunvor’s support for the EITI reflects our commitment as a trading house to uphold progressive policies and practices in the oil and gas sector. As one of the largest physical energy trading companies in the world, we recognize that we have role in promoting transparency and accountability. The EITI will help us accomplish this in a commercially responsible manner.”

Reducing corruption risks

In many resource-rich countries, revenues from sales of oil represent a substantial source of income. The EITI Standard requires the government and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to disclose information about these sales. Disclosures from commodity trading companies will allow these figures to be reconciled and verified. Additional sources of information ensure more reliable data and more informed public debate. According to a recent review, EITI countries are increasingly publishing more detailed information on their oil sales.

Disclosure of the payments to governments for oil sales will reduce the risk of corruption and improve the accountability of SOEs that sell oil, gas and minerals on behalf of the government.

For more information on the EITI’s work in this area, see the EITI commodity trading page