Julia Payne & Dmitry Zhdannikov

LONDON (Reuters] -Global energy trader Vitol made a record profit of just more than $4 billion in 2013, sources familiar with the matter claimed. The reason was that oil and other commodities prices soared.

Vitol is the largest independent oil trader in the world, but he declined to comment.

This unaudited profit beats the previous record of net profit that Vitol made in 2020 when oil markets crashed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Bloomberg reports Vitol earned $3.2 billion in 2020. However, the company doesn’t disclose net profits.

Vitol announced last week that revenues jumped to $279 Billion in 2021 due to oil prices recovering from their 2020 lows. In 2020, its revenues reached $140 billion.

It said that it traded 7.6 millions barrels per daily (bpd), of crude oil and refined products, up from the 7.1 million in 2020. After taking a loss during the extremely low demand period caused by the pandemic in 2020, oil trade volumes still fell below its record of 8.3 million barrels per daily for 2019. Particularly, jet fuel was down 22 percent

2021 initially proved to be more challenging for traders than 2020. The market was in a chaotic conango, with oil futures prices rising faster than usual. This made oil storage profitable.

The market was backwardant for most of 2013 – the reverse situation. However, oil prices became volatile and increased by more than 50% over the beginning of 2013.

The sharp rise in gas prices over the second quarter of 2021 has boosted traders’ bottom line. As economies recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, natural gas prices and electricity rose around the globe.

TTF was the highest-priced European gas, while Asian LNG prices and TTF were at their lowest levels since 2004. TTF however has set new records after Russia invaded Ukraine.

“When you see the Henry Hub to TTF spread, it’s a multiple of what it used to be so it boosts the profitability,” one of the sources familiar with the results said.

Vitol was able to trade 12.9million tonnes of LNG (liquefied natural gas) in 2021, compared with 10 million in 2020. Meanwhile, its gas and power volumes have grown by 30%.

The Rival trading company Trafigura in Geneva posted an unprecedented net profit of $3.1 Billion for the financial year that ended September 30. Mercuria Energy Trading in Switzerland reported an unprecedented net income last week of $1.26 trillion.

Shell Oil Major (LON) is the world’s largest oil trader of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). It stated that integrated gas earnings had been increased by “significantly greater” trading profits.