Zoals al eerder vermeld door mij, moeten wij niet vergeten dat Shell's trading arm (de grootste van de wereld) dit jaar een super jaar heeft.
Lees onderstaand maar even over BP:
BP Lifts Veil of Secrecy on Big Oil Trading Profits (1)
2020-09-16 11:27:01.121 GMT
By Javier Blas and Laura Hurst
(Bloomberg) -- BP Plc offered a glimpse of the
profitability of its huge and secretive trading arm, suggesting
it makes annual returns of as much as $2.5 billion.
The revelation, which came during presentations this week
about the company’s clean-energy plans, follows the emergence of
trading in the first half of the year as one of the few bright
spots for BP and its peers. The operations brought a torrent of
cash that partly offset the impact of the coronavirus crisis on
oil prices and energy demand.
BP’s in-house trading business has a “long track record” of
boosting the company’s return on average capital employed by
“close to” 2 percentage points, according to Chief Executive
Officer Bernard Looney.
Unlike the closely guarded trading profit, the company does
disclose the average capital it employs each year. From 2015 to
2019, that figure was $124.2 billion a year, according to last
year’s annual report. That suggests a 2% uplift to the RoACE
equates to about $2.5 billion. That’s more than Vitol Group made
in 2019, which was a record year for the company.
BP doesn’t disclose the profits of its trading unit and
declined to comment on questions from Bloomberg News about this
calculation.
The major published the figure this week as part of its bid
to convince investors that its trading unit can help boost
returns for less-profitable renewables. Trading, access to low-
cost funding and integration are some ways that the company
thinks it can achieve 8% to 10% returns across its renewables
portfolio. “We actually believe we can do better, and these
returns could turn out to be conservative,” Looney said.
Major Trader
Although better known for its oil fields, refineries and
fuel stations, BP is one of the world’s largest commodity
traders. Alongside rivals Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Total SE, it
bets its own money on the ups and downs of the global oil and
natural gas markets.
The company said it traded just under 11 million barrels a
day of crude oil last year, more than the best-known names of
the commodity trading industry such as Vitol, Trafigura Group
and Glencore Plc.
Historically, the three major oil companies have disclosed
as little as possible about how their traders make money. When
investors earlier this year asked Total about the profitability
of its trading business, CEO Patrick Pouyanne responded: “Oil
trading is a secret.”
The companies’ trading operations exploited wild price
moves this year created by the pandemic. BP, for example,
highlighted “exceptionally strong results” in its trading arm
during the second quarter, while Shell’s equivalent division
enjoyed record profits.