Vitol’s LNG Volumes Soared 24% Last Year on Europe Demand
(Bloomberg) — Vitol Group’s traded volumes of liquefied natural gas grew by 24% last year, the company said in a statement Tuesday, the latest evidence of its expanded dealmaking as demand for the fuel surges.
The increase means Vitol traded almost 17 million tons of LNG last year, according to Bloomberg calculations based on previously reported volumes. That’s about 15% of Western Europe’s needs in 2023, though it’s roughly a quarter of the LNG sales of Shell Plc, the world’s biggest trader, which also produces the fuel.
European demand for LNG in particular has soared as the region looks to replace Russian pipeline gas supplies and transition away from dirtier fossil fuels. In response, the world’s biggest commodity merchants are now stepping up their trading of the super-chilled fuel.
“We continue to see gas as a transitional fuel for the medium term, both in its displacement of coal in power generation and as a necessary complement to intermittent renewable generation,” Vitol Chief Executive Officer Russell Hardy said in the statement. He highlighted the “rapid evolution” of the European market.
Vitol — already the largest independent oil trader — last June signed a three-year contract to buy 550,000 tons a year of LNG from Indonesia’s Bontang terminal. That added to supply contracts it previously signed with Nigeria LNG, as well as QatarEnergy and a clutch of exporters from the US.
The volumes are likely to get bigger in the coming years.
Vitol’s LNG portfolio “stretches into the 2030s,” Hardy said at the CERAWeek conference in Houston earlier this month. The company will get 500,000 tons per year from Delfin Midstream Inc. in the US starting in 2026. That’s also the same year the trader is set to begin delivering 1 million tons annually to GAIL India.
Vitol’s trade volumes of crude oil dropped by 10% last year, while gasoline and gasoil rose, the company said. Its turnover fell to $400 billion from $505 billion in 2022.
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