Vitol and Gunvor rake in Russian oil profits a year after Ukraine invasion
Energy traders Vitol and Gunvor are still buying vast quantities of refined Russian oil, despite pledging over a year ago to significantly cut business with Kremlin-backed firms following the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
They are the only two Western companies to remain among the top 10 buyers of Russia’s refined products, including petrol and diesel.
According to The Financial Times’ analysis of the country’s export records for the first four months of the year, Gunvor was the eighth largest buyer by value while Vitol was the tenth biggest purchaser.
The other eight largest buyers consist of Russian traders and new firms in the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong and Singapore – taking advantage of sanctions on oil and gas.
Topping the ranking is Litasco, which is the trading arm of Russia’s Lukoil.
Gunvor shipped 1m tonnes, worth an estimated $540m, while Vitol bought in 600,000 tonnes over the same period – priced at $400m .
In total, 50 companies exported a combined $16bn worth of refined petroleum from Russia over the first four months of this year, with the market highly lucrative amid sustained volatility in the sector.
Trading in Russian refined fuels including oil is not prohibited by western sanctions, and has been supported by the White House to limit supply restrictions – provided traders comply with restrictions imposed on Russia by the US and its allies.
This includes the G7 price cap, which was introduced in February to limit the price Moscow gets for its refined oil products.
Nevertheless, the vast majority of European traders have backed out including Shell and BP – concerned over the risk to their reputations, ceasing deals with Russian supplies entirely.
Moscow stopped publishing its aggregated customs statistics last year – meaning exporters’ customers declarations are one of the few options left for analysing Russian trade flows of oil and gas.
When approached for comment, Gunvor and Vitol confirmed to Morning Wire they were regular buyers of Russian refined fuels but disputed the accuracy of the data.
Gunvor revealed its own records showed it had purchased just over 700,000 tonnes in the period with a value of about $330m.
Vitol said the customs declarations did not match its internal figures but did not provide its own data.