Vitol profit drops to $4.5 billion in 2025, sources say

By Dmitry Zhdannikov

LONDON, June 10 (Reuters) - Energy trader Vitol achieved a net profit of around $4.5 billion in 2025, two sources familiar with the results told Reuters, a sharp drop from its stellar earnings of 2022-2024 but still the fourth-highest annual result for the company on record.

Privately held Vitol does not issue full financial results, but in March it said its revenue grew 3.6% to $343 billion last year and it traded 11% more oil and energy products than in 2024.

Annual earnings for the world's largest energy trader typically stood between $1 billion and $4 billion before Russia's invasion of Ukraine created exceptional market volatility, pushing the firm's earnings to $15 billion in 2022, $13 billion in 2023 and around $8 billion in 2024.

Earnings in 2025 were still higher than any year before 2022 and above 2021, when the group made around $4 billion. That means Vitol made around $45 billion in total in the last five years.

Vitol declined to comment.

Most commodity trading firms, which typically thrive on volatility, described 2025 as a calmer and more challenging year, with rival Trafigura reporting profit of $2.7 billion for the financial year through September 2025, Mercuria posting income of $1.43 billion and Gunvor just $104 million.

The earnings of such trading companies are in focus again this year as the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran tests their expertise in supplying global markets in times of stress.

Trafigura earned $4.1 billion between October and March, offering a first glimpse of a major trading house's results for a period since the start of the Iran conflict on February 28. 

Vitol Chief Financial Officer Jay Ng said in April the group's earnings were on a good trajectory for the first months of 2026. The company has put its record earnings towards investments in new assets and markets as well as paying out dividends. 

(Reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Writing by Robert Harvey; Editing by David Holmes and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)