Big oil traders such as Trafigura, Glencore, BP, and Shell Trading racked up record trading results. At the same time, smaller oil traders and players in other weaker-performing commodity classes stagnated or declined.
Meanwhile, new digital entrants in the power sector signaled sweeping change in the next decade, as legacy commodity traders began to rethink the impact of digitization and a greater
degree of electrification on their vaunted trading operations. Apple and Google, for instance, have subsidiaries that are registered energy wholesalers in the United States. The German tech firm United Internet has also launched a new business, aiming to trade and market energy and energy services.
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COMMODITY TRADING MARGINS BY THE NUMBERS
The gross margins of traders in oil, natural gas, and North American power and gas are improving,
but traders in other asset classes are struggling
Notes: Sum of products may not equal to total due to rounding; significance of shift overstated in graphic due to rounding; niche consists of emissions, Asia power, and gas and exotics (weather).
Source: Oliver Wyman proprietary data and analysis.
About Authors
Alexander Franke is a Zürich-based partner in Oliver Wyman’s Energy practice, Christian Lins is a Zürich-based principal in Oliver Wyman’s Energy practice, Roland Rechsteiner is a Zürich-based partner in Oliver Wyman’s Energy practice, and Graham Sharp is a senior advisor to Oliver Wyman.
Ernst Frankl, a Frankfurt-based partner, and Adam Perkins, a London-based engagement manager in Oliver Wyman’s Energy practice, contributed to this article.
