After the "disappearance" of their positions, two former Goldman Sachs traders were laid off and subsequently joined the leading coal export company in the United States.

Global transition to green energy has become a major trend, and coal, a dirty energy source with carbon emissions, has been regarded by many as a must-eliminate energy source.

Goldman Sachs is no exception. However, shortly before selling its last batch of coal assets, two top commodity traders at Goldman Sachs left the bank and started their own venture, establishing a commodity trading company called Javelin Global Commodities.

For Peter Bradley and Spencer Sloan, the timing of their departure from Goldman Sachs couldn't have been more perfect. In the eight years since its establishment, Javelin's market capitalization has grown to over $1 billion, making it the largest coal exporter in the United States.

It is evident that coal will take a long time to completely exit the energy market. Insiders say that Javelin's profits reached a record high last year, far surpassing the company's $194 million profit in 2021.

Javelin is well-known in the industry, with an annual trading volume of over 60 million tons, most of which is coal, including metallurgical varieties used for steelmaking and thermal coal for power plants, serving clients such as ArcelorMittal, Tata Steel, and RWE Group. This company, with just over a hundred employees, has begun to compete head-on with commodity giants such as Glencore and Trafigura, which traded approximately 60 million tons and 80 million tons of coal respectively last year.

After working at Enron, American Electric Power, and Constellation Energy, Bradley joined Goldman Sachs in 2009 and led its commodity trading business. It was at Goldman Sachs that he established a connection with Sloan, who focused on investing in natural resource companies. Two events that took place there were crucial to Javelin's subsequent success: both individuals were involved in managing Goldman Sachs' physical coal assets in Colombia, and Bradley deepened his relationship with American coal magnate Robert Murray.

Just a few months after the two left Goldman Sachs, the bank sold these coal businesses to Murray's energy company, which was then the largest private coal mining company in the United States. Bradley and Sloan quickly gained marketing rights from Murray, while Murray acquired a 34% stake in the new company. With an agreement reached with German energy giant Uniper, Javelin gradually gained reputation.

Javelin states that its core business is to provide services to industries that are difficult to decarbonize and transition to clean energy. The company has gained the trust of American miners and has weathered extremely difficult times together.

Murray filed for bankruptcy at the end of 2019 to restructure over $2.7 billion in debt, and Javelin subsequently repurchased Murray's shares for $20 million.

In the summer of 2022, Bradley and Sloan repurchased Uniper's 28% stake, consolidating their control over the company during the largest coal price surge in fifteen years. During the European energy crisis last year, European companies urgently needed to replace Russian coal, and the price of American coal shipped to Europe by Javelin skyrocketed. As Poland restarted its old coal-fired power plants, the company provided Poland with up to one-fifth of its coal gap, importing coal from South Africa, Mozambique, and its mines in the United States to help generate electricity in Poland, the United Kingdom, and other European countries.

Javelin accounted for nearly 20% of the total coal shipped from the ports of Virginia, Maryland, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas, the largest coal export centers in the United States in 2022, surpassing long-established competitors such as Arch Resources and CONSOL Energy. According to ship data from Riverside Shipping, by the end of this year, the company has transported 12.7 million tons of metallurgical coal and thermal coal from the United States to customers in countries such as the Netherlands, India, and France.

Although the company now trades in other commodities, including various metals and agricultural products, coal remains the backbone of its business. In 2019, it secured an exclusive marketing agreement to produce coal from a deep coal mine in the United Kingdom, the first new coal mine developed in the country in thirty years.

In the face of criticism from the market about the coal industry exacerbating global warming, Javelin is expanding its mining business into more environmentally friendly fuels, wind energy, and carbon offsetting. The company is developing renewable energy projects in US mining areas, with 9 projects currently underway and an additional 17 projects in the application stage. The company aims to achieve carbon neutrality within five years but also stated that it will not abandon the coal-producing communities it takes pride in.