Sources say Vitol will post a net profit of $8 to $8.5 billion in 2024.

Two industry sources said that Vitol was the world's largest energy trader in 2024. This is a significant drop from its record-breaking profits of 2022 and 203, but it still outperformed rivals by an enormous margin, despite lower volatility.

The energy traders made record profits between 2022 and 2023, as the market recovered from the pandemic. They also faced shortages of gas following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Vitol has declined to comment.

Vitol has made $45 billion over the past five years, a figure that was previously unimaginable to oil traders.

Vitol, the largest and most profitable trading company in the world for more than a decade now, made annual profits between $1 billion to $2 billion before the pandemic.

Many of the 400-500 employees are traders who are rewarded for their performance.

The company paid out a record $6.5 billion dividend to its employee-shareholders on the basis of its results for 2023. The dividend for 2024 is yet to be announced.

Vitol also invested billions in acquiring oil and gas production assets and refineries around the globe. It has also diversified into power, coal and metals trading and recently even more.

In 2024, the firm will trade 7.2 million barrels of oil per day, a slight decrease from last year and 7% of the global supply.

After acquiring a large refinery in Sardinia (Italy), its oil refining capability jumped from 850,000 bpd to 850,000 last year. The Geneva-based trader predicts that global oil demand will peak at 110 million bpd early in the 2030s and then slowly decline to 105 millions bpd by 2020.

Vitol, who increased its gas trading during Europe's 2022-2023 gas crisis, has expanded its LNG trade volumes by 10%, to 19,4 million tons oil equivalent, in 2024. The traded power volume, however, remained flat, as gains in North America offset a decline in Europe.

Trafigura, Vitol’s rival, made $2.8 billion profit in 2024. This follows $7.3 billion and $6.8 in 2023.

BP, the oil giant, reported a net profit of $381 million, down from $15,2 billion in 2023. Shell, BP's larger rival, reported a net loss of $16.52billion in 2024. This is down from $19.6billion in 2023. Reporting by Julia Payne and Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Rod Nickel

(source: Reuters)