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Workshop series,

Commodities Unlocked: Commodity Trading Workshop Series 2026

A certificate programme of six evening workshops with faculty and practitioners from Petraco, Sucafina, Suisse Atlantique and Trasteel, from oil and coffee to shipowning and steel, closed by a trading competition. Participants who missed no more than two workshops received a certificate signed by CLS-HSG.

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Capt. Harpreet Singh (Suisse Atlantique) on shipowning
Date
Location
University of St. Gallen
Speakers
  • Prof. Matías Dewey
  • Prof. Ivo Sarjanovic
  • Dr Alberto Salsiccia, CFO, Petraco Oil Company
  • Dave Behrends, Head of Trading, Sucafina
  • Capt. Harpreet Singh, COO, Suisse Atlantique
  • Alexei Solovyev, CFO of a trading company
  • Marco Micciché, Trasteel
  • Gianluca Ibranyan, Trasteel

Certificate

Signed by CLS-HSG

Latin American-Swiss Center, University of St. Gallen

Requirement
Miss no more than two of the six workshops

Recap

Commodities Unlocked, our Commodity Trading Workshop Series 2026, bridged economics, sociology and real-world trading. From 23 February to 27 April 2026, participants met on Monday evenings from 17:00 to 20:00 at the University of St. Gallen (the shipowning session took place on Thursday 19 March) and worked across the commodity spectrum, from oil and coffee to steel and shipping. Places were limited to 30 to 40 participants, selected on motivation.

Across the series, industry experts broke down how global commodity markets work in practice, and the programme ended with a trading competition in which participants applied the concepts in real time. We thank all our guest speakers for their contributions and our members for taking part.

Programme

23 February – 27 April 2026

  1. Date:

    Speaker: Prof. Matías Dewey & Prof. Ivo Sarjanovic

    Topic: Commodities at the crossroads of economics and sociology: how informal networks, institutions and power structures shape trading in Latin America.

  2. Date:

    Speaker: Dr Alberto Salsiccia, CFO, Petraco Oil Company

    Topic: Fundamentals of oil trading: physical flows, pricing mechanisms and the financial and risk-management side of large energy transactions.

  3. Date:

    Speaker: Dave Behrends, Head of Trading, Sucafina

    Topic: Fundamentals of coffee trading: from origin to consumer, supply-chain complexity, quality differentiation and managing volatility.

Show full programmeShow less, 4 more

  1. Date:

    Speaker: Capt. Harpreet Singh, COO, Suisse Atlantique

    Topic: Shipowning fundamentals: cost structures, chartering decisions and how shipping markets interact with commodity flows.

  2. Date:

    Speaker: Alexei Solovyev, CFO

    Topic: Trading from a CFO's perspective: capital allocation, risk exposure, liquidity management and the financial discipline behind trading performance.

  3. Date:

    Speaker: Marco Micciché & Gianluca Ibranyan, Trasteel

    Topic: Fundamentals of steel trading: market structure, pricing dynamics and the trader's role in connecting global supply and demand.

  4. Date:

    Speaker: Trading Competition

    Topic: Participants apply the concepts of the series to real-time decision-making under market constraints.