Vitol Made Aggressive Oil Bids as the U.S. Released Emergency Reserves
After receiving oil from the U.S. emergency stockpile, the commodities trader made unusually large bids during the brief trading window used to set global crude prices.
By Lois Parshley and Mekedas Belayneh
As the United States released oil from its emergency reserves to bring down fuel prices, one of the world’s largest oil traders that received reserves was bidding aggressively to drive up prices.
In the brief trading window used to assess daily market prices for physical crude oil, Vitol placed unusually large bids for WTI Midland and other grades that make up the benchmark. WTI Midland, a crude produced in Texas, has been a key part of the Dated Brent basket since 2023, which is used to price much of the world’s crude oil.
Significant price changes give commodity traders like Vitol lucrative opportunities to buy cheap and sell high. Baked into their business model is the ability to leverage their global information on energy market flows into profit. That creates opportunities for what the industry calls “asymmetric risk,” where the trader can risk a relatively small amount while having the chance to make a much larger profit if prices move in its favor.
Vitol bid $20.85 a barrel above Dated Brent prices for WTI Midland on Oct. 2nd. The bid didn’t result in a reported trade. But a bid doesn’t have to lead to a sale to influence the benchmark. During a brief daily window, S&P Platts, the company that sets benchmark commodity prices, uses bids, offers, and completed trades to assess the market. It also bid on WTI Midland and other cargoes for as much as $24.45 above Dated Brent prices on Oct. 5, a spree that overlapped the U.S. government’s most recent strategic petroleum reserve auction. If Vitol’s bid pushed the benchmark higher, it could increase the value of other oil trades—potentially earning the company more money—and widening the profits they may make from borrowing from the reserve.
The company also received oil in the first emergency exchange from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve earlier this year. On March 20, the Energy Department said it had awarded contracts covering 45.2 million barrels. The administration’s decision to loan the reserves, rather than sell as they have historically, means Vitol and other commodity traders can potentially sell at high prices now, while buying cheaper oil later to replace reserves, potentially making millions.
Prices can shift dramatically when markets are volatile, as they have due to the Trump administration’s chaotic policy changes. At an industry forum in the United Arab Emirates earlier this month, just after Vitol’s aggressive bidding, their managing director in Bahrain, Tom Baker, openly acknowledged the profit potential this creates. Referring to a trading strategy of moving commodities around the global market, he said, “There’s huge arbitrage opportunities going on.”
Vitol has previously been sanctioned for attempting to influence Platts benchmarks. In 2020, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) found that the company had tried to manipulate two fuel-oil benchmarks to benefit its physical and derivatives positions. The company allegedly made corrupt payments to employees and agents of state-owned entities in Brazil, Ecuador and Mexico. Vitol agreed to pay $95.7 million in civil penalties and disgorgement to settle the case.
Separately, the Justice Department resolved criminal foreign-bribery charges against Vitol in 2020 for more than $135 million. The agreement required Vitol to continue cooperating with ongoing investigations and imposed compliance and reporting obligations for three years.
Yet oversight of potential market manipulation has significantly weakened under the Trump administration. The CFTC’s workforce has shrunk by almost a quarter since Trump took office. The agency’s Division of Enforcement also recently retracted a referral concerning suspicious oil trades tied to a social media post by the President. In March, around $580 million in oil-futures contracts moved in the 15 minutes before the President posted about his talks with Iran, an unusually high trading volume that experts say suggest insider trading. Months later, a senior advisor to the Trump-appointed CTFC Chairman told the agency’s enforcement division not to investigate the trades.
Trading houses are increasingly influencing Trump administration policy as they expand their presence in Washington—and in return are seeing record profits. Former Vitol senior trader John Addison donated $6 million to the political action committees backing Trump, before attending a meeting at the White House prior to a U.S.-Venezuelan export deal that allowed Vitol to purchase crude from Venezuela’s national oil company at a steep discount, $15 per barrel below the Brent benchmark. Vitol resold the oil at higher rates.
A recent Public Citizen report found trading houses like Vitol spent more than $2.75 million lobbying in the first half of 2026, much of it through firms with direct ties to the administration, including the current White House chief of staff. The money flowing into Washington underscores the need to scrutinize who stands to profit when private commodity brokers become instruments of U.S. policy.