* More than 20 departures from oil industry within a month
* Traditional "musical chairs" not seen this time
* Market affected by poor trading margins, thin volatility a bane
By Yaw Yan Chong
SINGAPORE, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Two senior executives have left Swiss oil trading firm Trafigura in the past two weeks, bringing the total number of departures in the industry to more than 20 over the past month, industry sources said on Tuesday.
Unlike previously when traders traditionally switch jobs at the end of the year, most of those who left their jobs this time have yet to resurface in new ones.
Trafigura declined to comment on the departures of its two executives, Mike Scott, former co-head of its Singapore office and its crude trading team, and Wong Kong Yin, its head of operations in Asia. Sources said the positions have been replaced internally.
Both Scott and Wong, who has been with Trafigura for more than 10 years, left for personal reasons, sources familiar with the matter said.
Since about a month ago, investment banks JPMorgan and Credit Suisse have also seen the departures of a total of nine people, including traders and support staff from their commodities teams. [ID:nL3E6N10L9] [ID:nSGE69S04L]
Swiss-based Addax & Oryx Group will close its three-men Singapore office by the end of the year as part of a "strategic redeployment". [ID:nSGE6AM0DE]
The CME Group lost three senior executives, including its managing director for Asia, although the group, which owns the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) where the benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil is traded, said it remained committed to expansion in the region. [ID:nL3E6MO0PV]
Traders said 2010 had been a bad year for trading due to poor margins.
"Not many players made money and for some, it doesn't look as if things will improve next year even," a Singapore-based Asian trader said.
"Most of these guys who have left have yet to find new jobs," he said, adding that those who had made enough but did not see much prospects going forward prefer to cash out and retire.
Traders said poor trading margins were seen particularly in the fuel oil and distillates market.
RANGEBOUND TRADES
Central to the meagre margins was the tight range within which global crude benchmarks had traded and this led to similarly narrow ranges for fixed-price levels for products, leaving little space to compensate for wrong market calls, traders said.
For example, the front-month Brent contract has traded between a low of $69.55 a barrel and a high of $91.45 this year, up till Monday, versus a range of $46.91-$79.69 for last year.
Also, for much of this year, price levels have ranged within a narrow band of around $5.00 a barrel, unlike in 2009, when prices generally trended upwards, making it easier to call, they added.
The 30-day at-the-money implied volatility for U.S. crude for this year ranged at 26.78-45.18, versus 33.87-95.37 for 2009, reflecting a much less volatile 2010, Thomson Reuters data show.
"The market is less forgiving this year -- when a wrong call is made, there is less room to get out and reverse positions," another trader said.
"Worse, the market changes again after you had switched positions, resulting in a double-whammy." (Editing by Ramthan Hussain)