8 years ago

Inside Vitol: How the World’s Largest Oil Trader Makes Billions.

In its 50-year history, the publicity-shy energy company hasn’t seen an annual loss.

On June 1, 2016 Journalists Javier Blas and Andy Hoffman from Bloomberg.com wrote a fantastic article on the unseen hand that moves the world’s oil – VITOL. Fortune calculated in 2013 that when Vitol would be a public company, it would have been the 7th largest company in the world. Leaving companies like Toyota, Apple, Samsung and General Motors behind.

Facts Vitol: 

  1. Founded 1966;  Rotterdam, Netherlands.
  2. Revenue US$ 270 billion (2014)
  3. 200 ships at sea at any one time.
  4. Pipelines in 11 countries on five continents.
  5. 18.1M cubic meters of storage capacity across the globe.
  6. In 2014, Vitol paid dividends to its 300 plus shareholders – mainly present and former core employees – of over $37.2 billion. When it comes to the financial industry’s richest and most risk-taking executives, few top those in the world of energy trading.

In its 50-year history, the publicity-shy energy company hasn’t seen an annual loss. Now business is becoming more competitive than ever.

The Vitol Group is a privately held Swiss-based Dutch-owned multinational in energy and commodity trading company with a stunning US$ 270 Billion (2014) in revenue. And has 350 unknown very lucky share holders. The Group ships more then 8 million barrels of oil per day, more than 400 million tonnes of crude oil per year. Which is 6% percent of total world oil consumption. Basically the complete oil supply for countries like Germany, Great Britain and Italy combined!

I already wrote an article on Vitol 2 yrs ago:

“Nothing produced can be allowed to maintain a lifespan longer than what can be endured in order to continue cyclical consumption.”

Whatever happened to creating products that were meant to last?

Photo credit: Bloomberg.com