By Natalie Grover
(Reuters) -The world's top energy trader Vitol said on Tuesday it saw a tight global oil products market as the Red Sea crisis and the rerouting of Russian products has pushed record volumes of oil products to be held on tankers at sea. "While European road transport demand will begin to wane by the mid-2020s, in the near term we anticipate continued tightness in the market and an ongoing call on European refining," CEO Russell Hardy said in a statement on Tuesday.
He cited the rerouting of Russian crude oil and products away from Europe to India and China, and noted Europe has had to look further afield, most notably for gasoil.
The rerouting of Russian products and Houthi attacks in the Red Sea has resulted in all-time highs of oil products to be held "on-water", he said.
Vitol, the world's largest independent oil trader and a major player in the liquefied natural gas and power markets, also said it now saw oil demand peaking in the early 2030s, a few years later that it had previously anticipated. The Swiss firm's 2023 revenue fell to $400 billion, a drop of more than 20% from a year earlier, as oil and gas prices weakened following price spikes in 2022 after Western powers imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
Vitol's crude oil and product volumes though edged down only slightly by 1.6% to 7.3 million barrels per day (bpd). A 10% decline in crude volumes was partly offset by increases in gasoline and gasoil volumes, the firm said. This year the company anticipates global refined product demand will increase by 1.5 million bpd. Vitol does not disclose net profit but the Swiss trader made a record $15 billion in 2022, according to a non-public balance sheet seen by Reuters.