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Commodities trader Trafigura has warned that global energy markets are at an “inflection point” that could send prices sharply higher as it reported near-record first-half profits boosted by the war in the Middle East.
The group’s net profit for the six months to March 31 climbed to $4.1bn, more than double the same period last year — and the second highest in its history, just below the $5.5bn made in the first half of 2023 in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Trafigura, which is owned by about 1,400 employees, also paid out a record dividend of $3.05bn for the period.
Trafigura’s results are an early indication of how the trading houses that move raw materials around the world are expecting bonanza profits from the Iran war, which has largely shut the Strait of Hormuz since late February, disrupting the flow of as much as a fifth of the world’s oil.
While the privately held group’s profits announced on Thursday capture only the first month of the war, trading houses typically benefit from periods of disruption and volatility as they profit from dislocations in the prices of commodities between different geographic locations.
Trafigura and rivals such as Vitol, Mercuria and Gunvor all reported record profits during 2022 and 2023 after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine roiled energy markets.
Oil prices surged in the early days of the Iran war but since then prices have broadly been lower than many traders first anticipated, with Brent crude, the international benchmark, falling back below $100 a barrel.
Trafigura warned markets against complacency, with chief economist Saad Rahim arguing that the world had largely run through its “buffers” of fuel inventories and now stood “at an inflection point”.
The war in the Middle East has caused a production loss of about 14mn barrels per day, compared with pre-conflict levels, according to Rahim, who added that the price response did not reflect the magnitude of the energy crisis.
“The factors that have contained prices so far — elevated inventories, floating cargoes, co-ordinated SPR [strategic petroleum reserve] releases, a shoulder season, and demand destruction across Asia and Africa — have bought the market time, but are not a solution,” Rahim wrote in the report.
He pointed to low US petrol inventories as a particular concern, noting that these inventories are being drawn down at a record pace.
Even if a peace deal between the Trump administration and Tehran was reached soon, “restoring production and shipping flows to pre-conflict levels will, by most estimates, take months, not weeks”, Rahim added.
Trafigura chief executive Richard Holtum echoed Rahim’s view, saying “the pressures that have built up across commodity markets and global supply chains in recent months will take time to unwind”.
Trafigura, whose financial year runs until the end of September, said that during its first-half period its traders moved record volumes of oil and gas, equivalent to 8.7mn b/d, up 21 per cent from the same period a year prior.
The company’s involvement in Venezuela, where the US removed leader Nicolás Maduro in January, also contributed to its increased oil volumes, accounting for about 300,000 b/d.
Chief financial officer Stephan Jansma said the company had a particularly strong first quarter, ending December 31, its second-most profitable first quarter ever. Trafigura’s metals division benefited from the copper tariffs in place in the US, and its refineries reported unusually strong results in the quarter, the company said.
“A substantial portion of the period’s profits had already been secured before the conflict in the Middle East began at the end of February 2026,” Jansma wrote.
