WCS & heavy-sour differentials
Blowout differentials on Western Canadian Select and other heavy-sour grades, matched to the Midwest and Gulf Coast cokers built to run them — starting with delivered barrels, not naive point-to-point arbitrage.
Crude Oil Brokerage · Houston, Texas
SAHJONY Energy Brokers
We take the barrels nobody else will work.
An independent crude oil desk that finds distressed, stranded, off-spec-but-fixable and odd-lot cargoes, vets them hard, and matches them to the refinery that values them most. The trading houses chase the easy flow. We work the orphans.
Desk capital in a deal
$0 — broker, never owner
Success fee
$0.35–0.50 / bbl
Fee protection
In writing before introductions
Sanctioned origins
Hard stop — no exceptions
WCS · Hardisty vs WTI
−$27.00
Fri Oct 16, 2026 · CalRock via Reuters
§ Desk Signal
The current dislocation: Canadian heavy is stranded.
Western Canadian Select is trading at its widest discount to WTI since November 2023 — more than $15 wider than a year ago — with pipelines essentially full, refinery disruptions biting, and record freight killing the re-export route. The location value between Hardisty and the Gulf Coast belongs to whoever holds delivered barrels and refinery relationships. That is the hunt this desk runs every week.
Desk signal dated Oct 18, 2026. This is a dated market note from our daily scan, not a live price feed.
01 The Hunt
What we hunt
Five lanes. Every one is a cargo the big desks pass on because it is too small, too complicated, or too urgent — which is exactly where the margin lives.
Turnaround-orphaned cargoes
When a refinery goes down for maintenance, its contracted cargoes lose their home overnight. We re-place barrels whose buyer just disappeared — and find replacement supply for plants coming back up.
Off-spec, with a waiver path
Cargoes that miss a spec on paper but can be blended, waived, or re-routed to a refinery whose crude slate tolerates them. Off-spec without a waiver path is a hard stop; off-spec with one is a discount we monetize.
Small parcels & co-loads
Odd lots too small for a trading house's book. We aggregate compatible parcels into co-loads so small sellers get tanker economics and small buyers get cargoes sized to their plant.
Estate & lien barrels
Barrels tied up in estates, liens, and distressed balance sheets — clean title verified chain by chain before they are ever shown to a buyer.
02 The Process
How it works
The money never touches us. We sit between buyer and seller as a protected intermediary — never as owner, never as a bank.
Signatures before introductions
Before any buyer meets any seller, the brokerage fee is fixed in a signed fee-protection agreement (NCNDA + irrevocable fee instruction). No signatures, no introductions — that sequence is a hard rule of this desk.
Directly, by letter of credit
The buyer's bank pays the seller by LC under the sale contract between them. We are not a party to the cargo money and never take title to a single barrel.
At settlement, same value date
The paying bank executes the irrevocable instruction and splits the broker fee off the settlement, paid the same day the seller is paid — calculated on outturn barrels at the agreed $/bbl rate.
No client funds, ever
Inspection, freight, and LC costs sit with buyer and seller under their contract. The desk holds no client cargo funds, advances nothing, and carries no flat price risk.
Hard stop
Every cargo is vetted before it is priced
Counterparty KYC, title-chain verification, and sanctions screening run on every deal, at every stage. Sanctioned origins or parties, unverifiable title, dark vessels, and upfront-fee patterns stop the deal outright — our compliance function can halt any transaction unilaterally.
Fee estimator
Illustrative only — the actual fee is set in the signed fee-protection agreement for each cargo.
Estimated desk fee
$87,500
250,000 bbl × $0.35 · desk capital in deal: $0
03 Retainer
The paid hunt
Don't wait for the market to come to you. Retain the desk to hunt your slate full time — your grades, your delivery points, your refinery's appetite.
SCOUT
$2,500 / month
Market intelligence for your slate.
- Weekly orphan & differential brief, customized to your grades and delivery points
- Blowout alerts with the desk's read, as they happen
- 2 scored cargo dossiers per month
HUNTER
$5,000 / month
The full hunt, with introductions.
- Everything in Scout
- Priority access to every scored cargo matching your slate
- Full vetting dossier per cargo — counterparty, title chain, sanctions screen
- Netback & arbitrage math with the ceiling stated
- Up to 4 live introductions per month, fee protection in place
DESK
$10,000 / month
A dedicated desk, around the clock.
- Everything in Hunter
- Dedicated coverage across Houston, Rotterdam and Singapore hours
- Turnaround orphan watch for your plant
- Co-load aggregation for odd lots
- Monthly slate planning
Success fees
$0.35–0.50/bbl standard, depending on complexity. Retainer clients pay $0.25–0.35/bbl.
Retainer credit
50% of each quarter's retainers are credited against that quarter's success fees — the retainer is never pure sunk cost.
Terms
Initial term 3 months, then month-to-month with 30 days' notice. No exclusivity demanded. Weekly reporting whether or not a cargo closes.
Founding offer: the first 3 clients lock this pricing for 12 months. Reply and we will send this week's brief for your slate, free, so you can judge the work before you pay for it.
04 Contact
Talk to the desk
Selling barrels nobody wants to work? Running a plant that could use a hunting desk? One call or one email reaches the founder directly — no call center, no mandate chain.