(Bloomberg) -- Oil trader Pierre Andurand’s eponymous hedge fund is headed for its worst loss on record, ending a three-year winning streak, as bets on the commodity’s prices turned from bad to worse. 

His main fund slumped 54% this year through Dec. 8, a person with knowledge of the matter said, asking not to be identified because the information is private. The loss, if sustained, would mark the 46-year-old’s biggest since he started the hedge fund a decade ago after closing his previous business.

The steep losses in the Andurand Commodities Discretionary Enhanced compare with Andurand’s stellar gains during the previous three years, when the Frenchman powered a more than sevenfold jump in his investors’ capital.   

Andurand’s bold and bullish predictions and bets on oil hitting $140 a barrel have gone awry this year as prices remained depressed, aided by elevated supplies. In a Bloomberg TV interview last month, he said he was surprised by the expansion in American oil output and the resilience in deliveries from some members of the OPEC+ producer alliance, adding he’d scaled back his expectations.

The decline highlights how challenging the year has been for oil bulls. Much of the industry entered 2023 with high expectations that crude was heading toward $100 a barrel as China completed its economic reopening from the Covid-19 pandemic. But the market stumbled in March as international travel failed to roar back as anticipated. It has since suffered a series of setbacks. 

A rally over the summer, stoked by record global demand and a cut in supplies by OPEC+, took prices close to $100 but fizzled after the squeeze reined in consumption while shale oil from US flooded the markets. Prices sank to a five-month low this week.

In line with those fluctuations, Andurand’s hedge fund also swung wildly. The Discretionary Enhanced fund, which he runs with no set risk limits, lost about a third of its value during the first quarter and about 26% in the next. Rising oil prices in the third quarter gave some respite, with the fund bouncing back 68% before plunging again in the final quarter, according to the person and an investor letter seen by Bloomberg News.

His other and older Andurand Commodities Fund, which targets lower volatility, is down 10% this year through Dec. 8 and has gained 287% since inception in February 2013, another person said. 

A representative for Andurand Capital Management, which managed $1.3 billion at the end of July, declined to comment.

Andurand, who began his career in 2000 as an oil trader at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and later worked at Vitol SA, is no stranger to big losses.

BlueGold Capital Management, which he ran and co-founded with Dennis Crema in 2008, plunged 34% in 2011. The losses followed returns of 209% in 2008, 55% and 13% in the following two years, respectively, earning Andurand a reputation as a successful oil trader. The duo shuttered the firm in 2012 with Andurand launching his own firm later. 

Investors who moved over from BlueGold to Andurand had their individual high-water marks matched, meaning they did not pay performance fees until the new fund recovered their prior losses, one of the people said.

--With assistance from Grant Smith.

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