Top oil merchant Vitol to stop trading Russian crude by end of this year

Vitol's announcement came after an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote to the heads of Vitol and other merchant traders, asking them to terminate business dealings with Russia

Vitol Group, the world’s top independent oil trader, intends to completely stop trading Russia-origin crude and products by the end of this year. 
 

Volumes of Russian oil handled by Vitol “will diminish significantly in the second quarter as current term contractual obligations decline,” a Vitol spokesperson said by email. It intends to cease trading crude and products unless directed otherwise, and “we anticipate this will be completed by end of 2022.”

The Geneva-based firm reiterated that it will not enter into any new Russian crude and product transactions. The company has stressed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that its purchases