Commodity trading giant Vitol Group distributed $5.9 billion to its executives and senior staff in 2025 through share buybacks. This payout occurred even as the company's profits for the year more than halved, reaching $4.2 billion. Despite this decrease, the 2025 profit figure remains higher than any year prior to 2021.
The substantial payout highlights the continuing trend of significant riches accumulated by commodity traders following the profit boom initiated by the energy crisis early in the decade. Vitol's total profits since 2022 now stand at an impressive $41 billion. The company, recognized as the world's largest commodity trading house by revenue, is privately owned by approximately 600 of its employees.
While the provided web search results detail Vitol's significant payout and profits in 2025, they do not contain information specifically about a $75 million payment to a trader convicted of corruption. Instead, other results discuss Javier Aguilar, a former Vitol oil trader convicted of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and money laundering violations, for bribing officials in Ecuador and Mexico to secure business deals worth over $500 million for Vitol. Vitol Inc. itself paid over $160 million to settle bribery and market manipulation allegations, admitting to conspiring to pay bribes in Brazil, Mexico, and Ecuador, and attempting to manipulate fuel oil benchmarks.
