Andrew Hall

Andrew Hall studied chemistry at Oxford University before entering commodity trading. He built his reputation at Phibro — the commodity trading firm — and then at Citigroup after it acquired Phibro, where he ran the oil trading book. Hall was known for his willingness to take large, long-term directional positions in crude oil based on macro supply-demand analysis, holding them with extraordinary patience through periods of adverse price movement. He correctly identified the emerging oil supply squeeze in the mid-2000s and built a massive long position in crude oil that generated extraordinary profits as prices rose toward $147 per barrel in 2008. His trading profits at Citigroup were so large — reportedly over $100 million in a single year — that his 2009 bonus of $100 million became a political controversy during the government's TARP bailout of Citigroup, drawing Congressional attention. Citigroup sold Phibro to Occidental Petroleum in 2009. Hall subsequently founded Astenbeck Capital Management, an oil-focused hedge fund. Astenbeck had significant early success but suffered substantial losses as the structural transformation of the oil market — particularly the rise of US shale production — defied his bullish macro thesis. Hall closed Astenbeck in 2017 after a prolonged period of losses, having realised that algorithmic and systematic strategies were displacing the traditional macro commodity trader edge he had built his career on.