T. Boone Pickens Shuts Down Oil-Trading Operations

“It has been one hell of a roller coaster ride.” Oilman T-Boone Pickens on close of his oil trading operations.

At age 89, oilman T. Boone Pickens apparently figures he has seen and experienced it all in his days of investment in the oil and gas industry. Riding the highs and surviving the lows.  Giving millions to help Oklahoma State University’s football program. Buying a massive ranch in the Texas Panhandle and now offering it for sale.

Pickens says he’s now bored with trading oil and is closing BP Capital, his oil-and-gas commodity focused company. It comes nine years after he launched The Pickens Plan which was designed to drive the U.S. energy sector away from its dependence on foreign oil.

“It has been one hell of a roller coaster ride,” he told UPI in a recent interview.”In making this decision, I’m mindful of the fact that BP Capital is not the first nor the last energy focused hedge fund to close up shop. The financial world is littered with them these days.”

Since departing ways with Mesa Petroleum in the 90s, Pickens has seen oil prices go from $10 a barrel up to nearly $150 a barrel. Just in the past days, he’s seen Brent crude hit $70 a barrel for the first time since December 2014.

Pickens said he’s enjoyed the ride, but was hanging it up after a storied career in oil trade.

“I’ve thrived and profited on the volatility in the energy space,” he said. “But for me, personally, trading oil is not as intriguing to me as it once was.”

 

 

Pickens last decade shelved a $10 billion effort to build a giant wind farm in the Texas Panhandle. A spokesman for his BP Capital Management said at the time the ambitious effort was shelved because of a tight credit market and because electric utilities were opting to build natural gas-fired generators at a time of low gas prices.