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.
- Inside Vitol: How the World’s Largest Oil Trader Makes Billions (Bloomberg.com)
Facts Vitol:
- Founded 1966; Rotterdam, Netherlands.
- Revenue US$ 270 billion (2014)
- 200 ships at sea at any one time.
- Pipelines in 11 countries on five continents.
- 18.1M cubic meters of storage capacity across the globe.
- 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