Rachel Carnac pays tribute to Trevor Tarring
I always remember being at Metal Bulletin for about three weeks and Trevor asking me for an update on the copper concentrates mating season. I was completely flummoxed. But I went off and found out. As a result concs and intermediary products, like bauxite and alumina, became some of my favourite markets to price and write about.
It really made us learn quickly. He’d pop into Lower Marsh after a lunch in town before going back to the offices in Worcester Park. “So what are you hearing about Australian tantalum?” he’d throw at you. Or “what’s the backwardation on tin?” It kept us on our toes.
I still say to anyone new to non-ferrous metals to read Trevor’s Trading in Metals. It really is the best guide to the workings of the physical metals markets.
Journalists need to be curious, but Trevor also taught the importance of scrutiny and how to be a good listener. Getting the information is one thing, but to be able to weigh that up and understand the context (geopolitical plus market dynamics), meant he got us to write with a deeper understanding of the markets. He also was extremely funny and was excellent at puncturing any form of pomposity.
Whenever I had a tough time with minor metals pricing, he was always on hand to give good advice – usually that there was nothing new under the sun and he’d seen it all before.
I loved his stories about the great trading companies of the first half of the last century. Tales of the glamour, the swagger and the derring-do of metals trading: The “Mad Men” of metals. Other markets always seemed boring by comparison. Trevor represented a specific time in the metals industry and we are all a lot poorer for the loss of him and those times.
By Rachel Carnac, director, Metal Events
