Vitol owes its huge profits to surges in the energy and commodity markets sparked by Russia's invasion of Ukraine early last year. It and rival traders Cargill, Glencore and Trafigura made combined profits of nearly $50 billion for 2022, per Bloomberg.
Vitol is the world's largest independent oil trader, with its key executives based in London, according to the. However, it also benefitted from big profits in other areas such as electricity markets, and liquefied natural gas trading, per the newspaper. More than 400 of Vitol's employee shareholders, who are mostly based in London, Geneva, Singapore and Houston, also shared a $2.5 billion payout last year,According to Bloomberg, the $15.1 billion figure for 2022 is more than the profits made by the company for the previous six years combined. Vitol Group declined to comment to Bloomberg and did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider, made outside normal working hours.