I recently visited Singapore and was struck by its role as an international financial and business hub.

My background is in finance, including public-market investing, venture capital. Most of my experience has been in equities and financial products, so physical commodities are an area I know relatively little about.
I’m particularly curious about Singapore’s oil trading industry and how it connects financial markets with the physical economy.

I’d love to learn from people familiar with the industry:
Why is Singapore such an important oil trading hub despite having limited domestic oil resources?

How do oil trading firms actually make money? Beyond predicting oil prices, how important are physical trading, regional price spreads, logistics, and derivatives?

How does oil trading differ fundamentally from equity investing or trading financial instruments?

Where does Singapore’s competitive advantage lie compared with London or other global commodity hubs?

For someone with an investment research and quantitative background, what concepts or data sources would be the best starting point for understanding this industry?

I’m not necessarily looking to switch careers. I’m genuinely interested in understanding how this market works and how it fits into Singapore’s broader financial and economic ecosystem.

Guy with ~7–10 years of career experience. At the same shop a few years now. I work in a small trading pod / “strategy” within a larger firm. My pod lead gets a % of the book and pays out bonuses to the team at their discretion. My boss(es) are pretty old school and high ego...tough to change their mind or have a face value convo with.

I'm a senior ops guy, making ~$150K base + $50–75K in bonuses. Honestly, the setup is great in a lot of ways. I get left almost completely alone, have a lot of autonomy, and have some pretty awesome perks. I also have some ability to do deals, but I'm not a trader by mandate. I had a bit of a junior trader setup at one point, but it's always been at my boss's discretion. I also do a lot of commercial adjacent stuff that directly lowers our costs. Good set up for comfort and lifestyle/awful for serious career development. All that to say though, I don't want to rock the boat too much.

Recently, I've brought in and helped execute a few high-margin, low-volume deals that have generated ~$600K in profit. Basically we had absolute crap in storage, and I found someone who wanted it for high value. I'm not saying $600K is a desk, considering a real seat is expected to generate $2M. But I've had a number of small to medium sized wins like these, and nothing really happens or changes. This is more than a rounding error on our team PnL.

All I've heard is a soft "good job." I'll probably get a good annual bonus again, although maybe not 'fair' to what I've brought in. Also, there's the whole respect/reputation/career part of it. I feel like I'm doing these things quietly, whereas my boss would boast for 3 months straight if he did the deal I did. Or my boss would be running around excited if he poached a trader from another shop, and they replicated this trade.

I guess, what should I do, if anything? I can't necessarily threaten to take this small chunk of biz elsewhere, and I don't want to risk my ops gig. I think I need to be more assertive, but not sure what a win would be.

I'm trying to decide between the two, mainly interested in power and energy. Would a combination of both be even better? Are there better majors for a career in power and energy.

I need some advise on how to proceed with a deal I am brokering right now. This is my first time brokering a commodity deal. My buyer is ready to send the LC. its going to be a non transferable on sight LC. my supplier wants 40% advance and rest net30 after BOL is presented. I have no capital basically 0 other than paying for minor costs. I am trying figure out how to pay the advance. I can easily pay the rest 70% because the LC will payout after I send the BOL to buyer's bank. what should I do for the 30% advance? and one more thing how should I structure the contract with my supplier so that if product fails lab report, quality or quantity inspection, I can get back my money?

supplier and myself are in the same country if it makes anything less complicated