Alkagesta, the international commodity trading house, has been featured in The National in a report on how access to a Cold War-era pipeline network has allowed the company to keep aircraft flying through one of the sharpest supply shocks the jet fuel market has faced in years.
According to The National, Alkagesta joined a select group of companies granted access to the Nato Central European Pipeline System (Ceps) only days before the Iran war broke out. The 5,000km network links airfields, refineries, depots and ports across Europe, was built in the 1950s to supply Nato forces, and today carries mostly jet fuel to both military and commercial hubs. The timing placed the company's trading desk inside a physical supply route at the moment maritime alternatives were closing.
After the start of co-ordinated US-Israeli air strikes against Iran on 28 February and Tehran's retaliatory attacks, shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz — which carries a fifth of the world's oil — came to a halt. Gulf jet fuel exports fell by around 80 per cent in March, part of a wider disruption that removed more than 10 million barrels per day from global supply. Alkagesta has published its own assessment of that episode in its note on the Hormuz supply shock.
Asad Huseynov, Alkagesta's managing director of investments and assets, told The National that the company had turned the disruption into an opening. "In this crisis we have managed to turn the risk into opportunities," he said on the sidelines of the S&P Global Energy Middle East Petroleum and Gas Conference in London. He described an airline approaching the company after its existing supplier declared itself short of jet fuel: "We have managed to find him fuel at the volume that he needed." The company now holds contracts with two holiday airline operators, which he declined to name. Further commentary from the firm's leadership is collected on its publications page.
Access to Ceps was not immediate. Mr Huseynov described a lengthy application process requiring a detailed business plan, with only a limited number of new customers admitted each year. "It has many entry points into the system, starting from different parts of Europe and it has many exit points to different European airports," he said. "You have to explain why you want to do X tonnes from this entry but less on another entry, and why you want to take it to this airport." That approach is consistent with the staged expansion set out in the company's business model and its published risk management framework.
The company buys jet fuel from refinery suppliers in north-west Europe, including Exxon, Vitol and Petroineos, relationships Mr Huseynov said had been in place for many years. The product moves through the pipeline to customers at airports in Brussels, Frankfurt and elsewhere in Germany, with service agreements covering tank-farm storage and into-plane fuelling — an operation that sits alongside the firm's wider shipping and logistics capability and its trade finance lines.
Alkagesta expects to trade 100,000 tonnes of jet fuel this year and sees the European market holding steady even as the continent moves towards renewable energy. "In terms of the annual jet fuel sales, we're planning to increase it several times," Mr Huseynov said. "So I think it was a really good decision for us to enter this market." The company has separately documented its aviation work in notes on the jet fuel market and IATA and on its ISCC CORSIA certification for sustainable aviation fuel.
Higher regional refinery output, drawdowns of stocks and imports from the United States and Nigeria have offset much of the lost Middle Eastern supply, easing earlier fears of shortages in Europe. Air France-KLM has said its jet fuel supplies are secure for the summer, Lufthansa reported no signs of supply risk at its six European hubs, Ryanair's Michael O'Leary has said supply appears secure until September, and Jet2 does not expect disruption to its summer schedule.
Background on the company, its governance and its compliance regime is available via about Alkagesta, its leadership and governance page, its compliance policy and its contact details.
Sources
- The National, “How a Cold War relic allowed newcomer to jet fuel market to keep planes flying”, 2026-06-05 — thenationalnews.com
- Alkagesta company information — alkagesta.com
- Alkagesta media centre — alkagesta.com/alkagesta-media