London firms loses £6m after rogue trader's oil trades

A London broker has lost £6 million after an alleged rogue trader made substantial authorised bets on the oil market.

PVM Oil Futures confirmed it was conducting a full investigation after the trades in question caused a market jump so sudden that a pipeline attack or natural disaster would normally be the cause.

A trader, thought to be Steve Perkins, has been suspended after the trades were detected when the price of Brent crude oil rose around $2 in an hour to a year high of $73.50 per barrel.

PVM issued a statement after irregular trading was noted on the City and Asian markets.

"PVM can confirm that it was the victim of unauthorised trading on Tuesday June 30th," it read.

"As a result of a series of unauthorised trades, substantial volumes of futures contracts were held by PVM.

"When this was discovered, the positions were closed in an orderly fashion. PVM suffered a loss totalling a little under ten million dollars.

"PVM expects the highest standards of conduct from its people and takes contraventions of those standards extremely seriously."

The price of Brent crude oil hovered at around $66 per barrel on Friday morning.