July 2 (Bloomberg) -- PVM Oil Futures Ltd., a unit of the world’s biggest broker of over-the-counter oil derivatives, said a rogue trader lost almost $10 million.

The trades may have caused London oil prices to jump almost $2 a barrel to an eight-month high in the early hours of June 30, according to exchange data. The loss is 70 percent more than the brokerage’s parent company made last year, according to financial statements filed with Companies House. PVM said it is investigating the trades and continues to operate normally.

Oil traders are under increased scrutiny from regulators worldwide after companies including China Aviation Oil (Singapore) Corp., SemGroup Energy and hedge-fund manager Amaranth Advisors LLC were sunk by wrong-way energy bets. Crude’s surge to a record $147.27 last year prompted some politicians to call for curbs on energy trading.

“There was a big spike in volume and a lot of volatility in price” around 2 a.m. in London on June 30, said Stephen Schork, president of the Schork Group in Villanova, Pennsylvania. “That price movement had all the finger prints of someone getting caught in the market.”

More than 15,000 Brent lots, equivalent to about 15 million barrels of oil, changed hands between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. on London’s ICE Futures Europe exchange on June 30, according exchange data. That compared with 538 lots in the same period on the previous day and 422 on July 1.

‘Substantial Trades’

“As a result of a series of unauthorized trades, substantial volumes of futures contracts were held by PVM,” Robin Bieber, director of PVM Oil Futures Ltd., said in an e- mailed statement today. “When this was discovered the positions were closed in an orderly fashion. PVM suffered a loss totaling a little under $10 million.”

PVM said it informed its clearing house, U.K. financial regulator the Financial Services Authority and IntercontinentalExchange Inc., which operates the exchange, about the deals.

Intercontinental doesn’t comment on individual investigations, according to Sarah Stashak, director of investor and public relations at the Atlanta-based company. The company is “committed to protecting the integrity” of its markets, she said in a telephone interview today. FSA spokeswoman Abi Jones said the organization wouldn’t comment on “possible investigations.”

‘Under Scrutiny’

“Commodities trading, together with futures and options, is under quite a lot of scrutiny,” Jones said. “We would expect the regulated exchanges, including ICE, to have adequate systems and controls” against possible rogue trading.

PVM Oil Futures is a unit of PVM Oil Associates Ltd., a Bermuda-incorporated company. The subsidiary is principally an “introducer and execution only broker,” on ICE, according to financial statements filed with Companies House, the government body that stores information on U.K. businesses.

PVM Oil Associates had net profit of $5.88 million in the year ending July 31, 2008, according to the statements, and revenues from “commissions and other income” of $65.2 million. PVM Oil Futures recorded a net profit of about $1 million in the same period.

PVM expects “the highest standards of conduct from its people and takes any contraventions of those standards extremely seriously,” Bieber said in the statement. PVM declined to comment further on the incident.

A former oil trader at Morgan Stanley in London, who shorted oil futures without permission after drinking at lunchtime, was banned by the FSA in May for trying to conceal his trades.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alexander Kwiatkowski in London at akwiatkowsk2@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: July 2, 2009 11:41 EDT