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(Bloomberg) — DV Trading hired several fuel and natural gas traders in recent months as it expands its proprietary energy-trading business, even as other firms slow hiring in the space amid ebbing volatility. 

Bryndon Kline, previously with Trafigura, joined as a fuel trader, and Nate Costello, most recently at Aramco Trading Co., was hired as a refined-products strategist, Chicago-based DV Trading said. The firm also added Ryan Sharma as a natural gas trader last month, while RJ Hayes, who was a senior gas trader at TC Energy Corp., joined earlier this year. Blake Hill, a natural gas trader, was hired from Engelhart Commodities Trading Partners. 

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DV Trading — one of the biggest market makers across the oil industry — is bulking up its DV Energy unit, which specializes in trading crude, refined products, natural gas, and related energy markets across the US, Europe, and Asia. The company is among a handful of firms that are still hiring in commodities, while others have pulled back as a period of heightened volatility fades and profits start to normalize. 

The company is currently expanding in European gas trading in particular, said Sean Lambert, partner at DV Trading and global head of energy trading at DV Energy.

“We’re really trying to expand it into something a lot more robust,” Lambert said in an interview, adding that the desk already has about three or four people and an analyst.

Natural gas and power markets have been a major area of focus for hedge funds and merchants over the past couple of years as volatility skyrocketed following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The market has been a significant driver of profits at top multistrategy hedge funds including Citadel and Millennium. Some, like Balyasny Asset Management, are also building businesses to trade physical gas and power there.   

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DV Energy doesn’t have plans to expand into physical commodities for now, Lambert said. 

“We’ve done some small-ticket things, but at the end of the day, we’re a prop firm, it’s our capital and I don’t think we’re in the business of going out there and leveraging ourselves to the nines,” he said. 

The firm has roughly 30 “pods,” or teams, with the biggest one having as many as 15 people. Overall, DV Energy has about 120 people, of which around 30 are support staff. That’s up from about 100 employees last year. 

DV Trading, founded about 15 years ago, has been growing in commodities beyond energy as well. The company hired Dylan Marie-Joseph as a senior coffee trader recently, part of a broader push into soft-commodities markets, where recent volatility has created huge profit opportunities. 

DV Trading still has open roles for full-time junior traders in London and New York as well as for an experienced energy trader. 

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