Vitol is an energy and commodities company founded in Rotterdam in 1966 by Henk Viëtor and Jacques Detiger, initially trading fuel oil barges in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp area and up the Rhine. It opened its first Swiss office in Zug in 1968, added London in 1969, the United States in 1974 and Singapore in 1979, and now serves customers from around 40 offices, with Rotterdam and Geneva as its two principal centres and further offices in Manama, Houston, London and Singapore.
Crude, products and physical flows
In 2025 Vitol delivered 605 million tonnes of oil equivalent, up from 540 million tonnes a year earlier, and traded an average of 8 million barrels per day of crude oil and products against 7.2 million barrels per day in 2024. Turnover rose to USD 343 billion from USD 331 billion. The crude and products business spans trading and distribution, shipping, production, refining, storage and blending and downstream marketing, and is supported by a long-term asset portfolio that the company values at more than USD 13 billion.
Metals trading has expanded since the acquisition of Noble Resources. The consolidated coal operation delivered 25.8 million tonnes of thermal coal in 2025, and the metallurgical coke business was folded into Vitol's ferrous trading desk so that miners and steel mills can be supplied with energy and raw materials together.
Industrial assets behind the trading book
- Refining capacity of 1.2 million barrels per day, including the Saras refinery in Italy and the VPR refinery in Rotterdam.
- More than 10,000 service stations, including the Engen network in South Africa held through the wholly owned African business Vivo Energy.
- About 24 million cubic metres of storage, a business that began with the creation of the storage company VTTI in 2006.
- Roughly 93,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day of production, including the Baleine project offshore Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana developed with Eni.
Power and lower-carbon businesses
Vitol is invested in about 8 gigawatts of generation, operational and under construction, split roughly evenly between thermal and renewable capacity. Most of the thermal plant sits within VPI, which operates must-run and flexible generation in the United Kingdom and Ireland and is building a battery portfolio in Europe. Gas trading covers LNG, biogas, bioLNG, LPG and pipeline gas; LNG volumes reached 23 million tonnes in 2025, up from 18 million tonnes, and total natural gas delivered rose by 15 per cent.
On the transition side, Vitol acquired the Danish plastics recycler WPU in late 2024 and is working to integrate its chemical recycling output with the Rotterdam refinery. Its Fujairah and Malaysian refineries co-process biowaste into bunker fuels, and the group runs dedicated teams for carbon, hydrogen, carbon capture and storage and electric vehicle charging.
Six decades of expansion
- 1970s: a United States presence from 1974 and Singapore from 1979, the Swiss office moved to Geneva, and Jacques Detiger became chief executive in 1976.
- 1980s: the Manama office opened in 1982 and Ian Taylor joined in 1985, building the crude oil trading business.
- 1990s: Ton Vonk became president and chief executive in 1990 and Ian Taylor succeeded him in 1995; turnover doubled to USD 20 billion over the decade; the Come by Chance refinery was bought in 1995 and divested in 2006; the metals business Euromin and the in-house insurer Anchor were established.
- 2000s: turnover grew from USD 37 billion in 2000 to USD 144 billion in 2009, and VTTI was created in 2006 alongside the purchase of 90 per cent of the Fujairah Refining Company in 2007.
- 2010s: a downstream network of more than 6,000 service stations, five refineries on three continents, 18 million cubic metres of storage, gas-fired generation in the United Kingdom and offshore oil and gas fields in Ghana developed with Eni.
Activity during 2026
2026 is the group's 60th year. Vitol announced a new LNG purchase agreement with Venture Global and an extension of its strategic LNG sales agreement with Brunei Energy Services and Trading in the first quarter, completed a 20-year LNG supply agreement with IRH in June, took an investment in Delfin FLNG 1, the first offshore liquefaction facility in the United States, and signed memoranda of understanding with the government of Ghana alongside Eni Ghana covering two offshore blocks in the Tano Basin. It also sold its shareholdings in the fleet electrification firm VEV and in VGMobility, and sold VTX Energy Partners to Verde Operating Company. Two credit vehicles with Breakwall Capital closed during the year, Valor Upstream Credit Partners II in February and Valor Mining Credit Partners II in March.
People, governance and contact
Russell Hardy is chief executive. In the 2025 volumes review the group confirmed that group chief financial officer Jeff Dellapina would retire after 16 years in the role and be succeeded by Jay Ng, and that the executive committee would be widened to include chief legal officer Jonathan Marsh and global head of distillates Matt Stacey. Vitol publishes an annual ESG report, runs an ethics and compliance programme and funds the Vitol Foundation.
General and media enquiries are handled through a form on the contact page rather than a published email address. Regional offices in Manama, Geneva, Houston, London, Rotterdam and Singapore list direct telephone numbers for enquiries.