The 3,300 employees of an oil trading firm each made almost $800,000 last year – way more than Wall Street bank staff (2024)

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The 3,300 employees of an oil trading firm each made almost $800,000 last year – way more than Wall Street bank staff? ›

Vitol's 3,311 staff each earned an average of $785,000 in salary and bonuses, according to Bloomberg, up from $394,000 in 2022. Their pay vastly outstrips the average compensation at Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley that paid an average of $312,000 and $280,000 respectively last year.

Though trading, logistics and distribution are at the core of its business, these are notably complemented by refining, shipping, terminals, exploration and production, power generation, and retail businesses. Vitol has over 40 offices worldwide, with its largest operations in Geneva, Houston, London, and Singapore.

$157K (Median Total Pay)

The average Fuel Oil Trader base salary at Vitol S.A. is $135K per year.

How much does a Crude Oil Trader make? As of May 2, 2024, the average hourly pay for a Crude Oil Trader in the United States is $41.95 an hour.

Vitol Group

Founded in 1966, Vitol Group is the world's largest independent oil trader, with an annual revenue of USD 225 billion in 2020. The company is headquartered in Switzerland and has offices in over 40 countries, with a focus on emerging markets.

Oil and gas majors have announced their earnings for the second quarter of 2023. Upon review of 15 oil and gas companies operating in the United States, it's clear that the fossil fuel industry is still raking in massive profits despite lower oil prices and the sharp decline in gas demand.

As the chart below shows, our survey suggests that macro traders earned the most in combined salary and bonus ($484k) in 2023, followed by credit and equity traders, who were on roughly equivalent $400k average packages, followed by commodities traders on $369k.

The four largest traders—privately-held Vitol Group, Trafigura, Gunvor, and Mercuria—have also paid record dividends to their employee shareholders, and even after these record payouts, the trading houses are now sitting on nearly $60 billion in combined equity, according to estimates by Reuters.

A day trader can have dry spells or experience volatility in their earnings. As a result, many trading firms offer instead a draw in lieu of a salary. This is often a modest amount of money meant to cover everyday living expenses and is drawn monthly. Then, any excess earnings are paid out in the form of bonuses.

Approximately 1–20% of day traders actually profit from their endeavors. Exceptionally few day traders ever generate returns that are even close to worthwhile. This means that between 80 and 99 percent of them fail.

What is the Vitol controversy? ›

A former oil trader at Geneva-based Vitol, one of the world's largest energy trading companies, was convicted on Friday of corruption charges stemming from more than $1 million in bribes he paid to officials in Ecuador and Mexico to win business.

The Vitol Group operates as an energy and commodities company. The Company offers crude oil and product trading, shipping, refining, terminals and storage, downstream, upstream, gas and power, renewables, and investments services. The Vitol Group serves customers worldwide.

Vitol S.A. has an employee rating of 3.6 out of 5 stars, based on 86 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there.

The trading house paid an average of just over $785,000 each in salary and bonuses to its 3,311 employees, compared with the previous year's average of $394,000, according to the company's audited annual accounts seen by Bloomberg News.