Commodity trader Gunvor's net profit fell 42% in 2024

By Robert Harvey and Ashitha Shivaprasad

(Reuters) -Global commodity trading house Gunvor said on Tuesday its earnings fell in 2024 as energy markets normalised from the extreme conditions that enabled trading houses to make record earnings in previous years.

Gunvor's net profits after tax reached $729 million in 2024, down from $1.25 billion the previous year.

That marks the second year of decreases in a row, and is just above the $726 million net profit the company made in 2021.

"The result reflects a return to more normalized energy markets compared with the previous two years, which featured significant volatility related to the global pandemic, the energy crisis, and international conflicts that had roiled energy markets," Gunvor said.

Profit fell despite a rise in revenue and traded volumes.

Gunvor's traded volumes leapt to 232 million metric tons in 2024, up from 177 million last year. And the firm's revenue rose by around 7% on the year to $136 billion.

Despite two years of lower net profit, Gunvor's 2024 result is its forth highest and above pre-pandemic levels.

The world's major commodity trading houses, including Gunvor and its peers Trafigura and Vitol saw weaker 2024 results after bumper earnings in 2022-2023, when they took advantage of market dislocations across commodity markets created by the COVID pandemic, Russia's war in Ukraine and Europe's energy crisis.

"We are experts in tackling disruptive things. It's no coincidence that when things are really disruptive, we do well," Chief Executive Torbjorn Tornqvist said at an industry event in Switzerland last week.

Gunvor said its energy transition and shipping businesses had helped to balance the performance of its sectors operating in the "stabilized" crude oil and refined products markets."

It added that its profit was impaired last year by the mothballing of its Rotterdam refinery, which it announced in December.

Gunvor's equity value following its 2024 results stood at $6.5 billion, it said.

Tornqvist owned a 84.79% share by year end, with the remainder allocated to the firm's employee shareplan.

(Reporting by Robert Harvey in London, Ashitha Shivaprasad in Bengaluru; Editing by Louise Heavens, Kirsten Donovan and David Evans)