Capítulo 1
The Shadowy Titans Who Control the World's Resources
In early 2011, a private jet corkscrewed through the war-torn skies of Libya, escorted by a NATO drone. Inside sat Ian Taylor, CEO of Vitol, the world's largest oil trading company. His mission? To supply fuel to Libyan rebels who couldn't pay cash. The stakes were enormous-Vitol's exposure eventually reached over $1 billion, enough to threaten the company's survival if the rebels lost. Yet Taylor continued the shipments, with tankers slipping into Libyan ports under cover of darkness while fighting raged nearby.
This high-stakes gamble perfectly encapsulates the outsized yet little-known power of commodity traders-the essential but shadowy middlemen who ensure our gas stations have fuel, factories keep running, and bakeries have flour. These modern-day merchant adventurers thrive where others fear to tread, handling vast portions of global trade: five oil trading houses control nearly a quarter of world petroleum demand, seven agricultural traders manage half the world's grains, and Glencore alone accounts for a third of global cobalt supply.
"The World for Sale" has become a cultural touchstone in business circles, with Bill Gates naming it among his top reads. This investigation into commodity trading has resonated widely because it exposes how a handful of largely unknown companies have shaped world history-helping Saddam Hussein bypass UN sanctions, keeping Castro's Cuba afloat, selling wheat to the Soviets during the Cold War, and raising billions for Putin's allies-all while generating extraordinary wealth for themselves in near-complete secrecy.
Capítulo 2
The Birth of Modern Commodity Trading
When Theodor Weisser approached the Soviet border in 1954, he felt a shudder of fear. As a former German soldier who had been imprisoned on the Eastern Front, entering the USSR during the height of the Cold War was particularly daunting. Yet this Hamburg businessman was determined-his fuel distribution company Mabanaft was losing money, and he needed new oil sources regardless of political boundaries.
In Moscow, Weisser secured a meeting with Evgeny Gurov, head of Soyuznefteexport, the Soviet agency controlling oil exports. Their dinner must have been surreal-a Soviet ideologue dining with a former POW under KGB surveillance. Despite initial challenges (shipping companies refused to transport Soviet oil), Weisser had secured what mattered most: a contact behind the Iron Curtain that would prove invaluable for years to come.
Weisser's Soviet deals weren't just a personal triumph but signaled a profound global change. The world was entering the Golden Age of Capitalism-unprecedented economic growth with booming consumer markets and expanding international trade. This new world created extraordinary opportunities for commodity traders to operate globally.
These founding fathers of modern commodity trading shared a willingness to trade with anyone-Communist or capitalist, democratic or authoritarian-with the singular goal of making profit. As one Philipp Brothers trader put it: "Business is supreme; political matters are not business."
Though commodity trading dates back to prehistoric humans bartering stones and metals, the modern industry emerged during the nineteenth century. The industrial revolution transformed resource trade through technological breakthroughs-steamships made long-distance shipping economically viable for bulk commodities, while telegraphs enabled near-instant global communication.
The first dedicated commodity trading companies emerged from Europe's industrial heartlands. World Wars devastated the industry, but postwar reconstruction created immense opportunities as government controls on resource trade were gradually lifted.
Capítulo 3
The Rise of Marc Rich
Born Marcell David Reich to a Jewish family in Antwerp in 1934, Marc Rich's early life was shaped by fleeing Nazi Europe. After escaping through France and Morocco, his family reached America in 1941. Growing up as an outsider moving between cities, Rich developed both a passion for business and remarkable adaptability.
He joined Philipp Brothers as a nineteen-year-old trainee in 1954, starting in the mailroom but quickly distinguishing himself through multilingual skills, intelligence, and extraordinary work ethic. Rich demonstrated his trading instincts early by cornering the mercury market, correctly anticipating increased demand from government stockpiling programs.
In 1968, Rich discovered a secret oil pipeline being constructed between Israel and Iran-an unlikely partnership between geopolitical rivals. With trade shrouded in secrecy, tankers would load oil in Iran claiming to be headed for "Gibraltar, for orders" but would secretly sail to Eilat. Rich exploited this pipeline enthusiastically, using it to sell Iranian oil throughout Europe at competitive prices.
Rich's ascent at Philipp Brothers accelerated. Posted worldwide to secure business or resolve problems, he spent time in Bolivia, revolutionary Cuba, South Africa, India, and the Netherlands before being appointed Madrid office manager at just thirty years old.
Though charming when necessary, Rich was fundamentally cold and single-minded. "His business and his hobbies were one and the same," recalled employee Danny Posen, who remembered waiting outside Rich's limousine while he pored over telexes late into the evening.
The 1973 oil crisis triggered seismic economic shifts worldwide. Oil prices tripled or quadrupled overnight, ending decades of stability. The nationalization of Middle Eastern oilfields cracked the Seven Sisters' oligopolistic system. As OPEC nations seized control of their resources, petrodollars flowed to producer countries rather than Western companies.
This market disruption created massive opportunities for independent traders like Mabanaft and Philipp Brothers. With surging prices, profits became extraordinary-commodity traders realized they could make more money trading crude than metals.
Capítulo 4
Breaking Away
Despite Philipp Brothers' record earnings of $54.9 million in 1973 (up 75% from the previous year), Marc Rich remained frustrated. The company's leadership had prevented him and partner Pinky Green from trading at full potential and refused their compensation demands.
The conflict reached its climax in February 1974 when Rich flew to Zug to meet Ludwig Jesselson during his skiing holiday. Rich again demanded $1 million to split with Green. When Jesselson refused, Rich announced he was leaving to start his own company.
Days later, not just Rich and Green but other senior traders were defecting-an unprecedented exodus from a company where employment was typically lifelong. Jesselson was devastated, later describing Rich's departure as "a very sad chapter" in his life: "They were like my own sons. I brought them up from nothing, and then they turned their backs on me."
On April 3, 1974, Marc Rich registered Marc Rich + Co AG in Zug, Switzerland, launching a new era in commodities trading. Starting with just five partners and merely two million Swiss francs (about $650,000) in capital, the company became profitable almost immediately, earning $28 million in its first eight months, $50 million the following year, and $200 million by 1976-surpassing Philipp Brothers.
The oil market's transformation created a gold rush mentality, with Dutch trading companies like Vanol, Transol, Bulk Oil, and Vitol emerging as significant players. Even major oil companies entered trading through subsidiaries as their own supplies diminished following Middle Eastern nationalizations.
Capítulo 5
The Last Bank in Town
In the early 1980s, Jamaica's Minister for Mines and Energy Hugh Hart received alarming news one Friday evening: Jamaica had run out of both money and oil. The central bank couldn't raise funds for a scheduled 300,000-barrel oil shipment, meaning the country's only refinery would stop production by Sunday, forcing nationwide gas station closures.
Desperate, Hart called Marc Rich's trader Willy Strothotte, who provided Rich's home phone number in Switzerland. Despite being awakened at 2 a.m., Rich arranged for a Venezuelan crude shipment to be diverted to Jamaica within 24 hours, averting a crisis that might have toppled the government.
This $10 million oil delivery without even a contract demonstrated the immense power commodity traders now wielded, using their financial might and risk appetite to support governments that traditional lenders avoided.
The 1970s-80s saw a dramatic shift in global commodity markets as resource nationalism swept through developing nations. Newly independent states seized control of their natural resources from Western companies, creating opportunities for commodity traders to become financial lifelines.
As Cold War tensions played out in Jamaica with violent street conflicts between pro-Moscow and pro-US factions, Marc Rich + Co deepened its relationship with the government after Edward Seaga took power in 1980. Beyond facilitating Reagan's bauxite purchases, Rich's firm provided critical financial support-advancing payments for bauxite, lending money to meet IMF requirements through creative accounting that kept debts off the books, financing Jamaica's purchase of Exxon's refinery, and even funding the country's Olympic teams.
When opposition politician Michael Manley returned to power in Jamaica in 1989 promising to investigate the Marc Rich deals, he quickly discovered the trader's formidable influence. New mining minister Hugh Small was pressured by officials in Venezuela and Canada to maintain good relations with Marc Rich. Though Small refused a quid pro quo, Jamaica's financial desperation forced Manley to announce a new $45 million loan from Marc Rich.
For nearly three decades, Marc Rich + Co and later Glencore profited enormously from below-market pricing. In exchange, the traders provided nearly $1 billion in financing to Jamaica over thirty years, becoming what former civil service head Carlton Davis called "the last bank in town."
Capítulo 6
The Transformation of Oil Trading
The commodity trading world was undergoing another revolution as financial markets for commodities expanded. A new breed of trader emerged, exemplified by Andy Hall of Phibro Energy, who made $600-800 million betting on oil prices during the 1990 Gulf War.
Unlike Rich's relationship-based trading style, Hall preferred careful market analysis from his Connecticut base. This shift was driven by the introduction of futures and options-"paper barrels" that allowed traders to bet on oil prices without handling physical oil.
Hall learned his trade at British Petroleum before joining Philipp Brothers (later Phibro Energy) in 1982. He developed his signature style: meticulously analyzing political and economic factors, placing high-stakes bets, and holding with nerves of steel. "We're not like other Wall Street firms that grub around for pennies," Hall once said. "As long as our analysis is valid, we will stick with our positions."
In early 1990, Hall spotted an opportunity in the oversupplied oil market. He executed a brilliant trade: buying physical oil, storing it on chartered supertankers, and selling futures contracts to lock in profits. Using Salomon Brothers' massive credit line, Hall accumulated 37 million barrels worth $600 million.
When Saddam Hussein threatened Kuwait over oil production, Hall boldly bought back some hedges, exposing himself to price movements. After Iraq invaded Kuwait in August, oil prices doubled to $40 per barrel, transforming Hall's tankers into cash machines and generating $600-800 million in profits.
The financialization of oil trading transformed the industry. Old-school physical traders were joined by math whizzes fluent in derivatives. Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley became "Wall Street refiners," using cheap funding and financial expertise to dominate oil trading.
Capítulo 7
The Fall of Marc Rich
In the early 1990s, Marc Rich + Co faced financial collapse as the trading empire struggled to maintain its dominance in a transformed commodity market. The company's finance department, led by Zbynek Zak, scrambled daily to secure enough funding to keep operations afloat.
By 1992, Marc Rich had brought in his personal lawyer Bob Thomajan as a gatekeeper, forcing experienced traders to take orders from this outsider who knew little about commodities trading. The mood at the company darkened as traders felt reduced to "vassals" rather than partners.
Rich refused to distribute shares more widely or relinquish control, insisting "on major decisions and special exposures, I have the final say." The first clash came when Rich fired Willy Strothotte after a perceived act of insubordination. Then Claude Dauphin, head of oil trading, resigned in July 1992, followed quickly by Manny Weiss.
With his senior leadership crumbling, Rich embarked on a disastrous attempt to corner the zinc market, resulting in a $172 million loss that revealed his outdated trading approach in an evolving derivatives market.
As Marc Rich + Co spiraled into crisis, traders began planning for the company's collapse. The oil team resigned en masse in February 1993, forcing Rich's banks to demand action. A group of traders led by Dauphin presented Rich with a brutal manifesto: sell all shares, step down from management, and change the company name.
Determined to sever all ties with Rich, Strothotte sought funding to buy out Rich's remaining 27.5% stake. In an unusual corporate maneuver, pharmaceutical giant Roche invested $150 million for 15% of the company. On September 1, 1994, Marc Rich + Co officially became Glencore International, a name derived from "global, energy, commodities and resources."
Rich was stunned by how quickly his former employees had taken over, lamenting, "I was weak and the others could sense it... They held the knife to my throat." For his 70% share, Rich received approximately $700 million-a bargain price for what would become one of the world's largest commodity trading companies.
Capítulo 8
The Soviet Collapse and New Opportunities
The collapse of the Soviet Union created unprecedented opportunities for commodity traders as the world's largest oil producer and major metals and grain supplier suddenly integrated chaotically into the global economy.
In post-Soviet Moscow, aluminium trader David Reuben met Lev Chernoy, a sharp Central Asian businessman disabled by polio. Around them, the Soviet manufacturing industry had ground to halt, inflation skyrocketed, and ordinary Russians' savings were wiped out.
The Soviet collapse transformed commodity markets as Russian resources flooded global markets with little export infrastructure or international sales expertise. Commodity traders stepped into this void, becoming vital connectors between Russia's resources and global markets.
David Reuben, born in India to Iraqi parents before moving to London in the 1950s, founded Trans-World in 1977 with just $2 million in capital. Despite initial hesitation about Russian business, Reuben flew to Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, where he found a massive aluminum smelter whose manager couldn't even pay for the town's food supply.
Seeing opportunity, Reuben advanced money to be repaid in aluminum. With his brother Simon, he invested heavily in Russian aluminum, striking "tolling" deals where they provided alumina to smelters and received aluminum as payment. Trans-World became dominant, eventually controlling around half of Russia's aluminum output and becoming the world's second-largest aluminum company after Alcoa, generating estimated profits of $3 billion through the 1990s.
The Reubens' Russian gamble paid off spectacularly. Though Trans-World never published financial information, rivals estimated it made hundreds of millions annually at its peak. The profit margins were astronomical-while Western aluminum trading yielded merely $5 per tonne, Russian deals generated $200 or more.
Yet this lucrative business came with extreme dangers as the "wild east" attracted criminal elements. As Roman Abramovich later testified, "Every three days somebody was murdered in that business."
Capítulo 9
China Changes Everything
In June 2001, Mick Davis sat at his London home drafting plans for Xstrata, a struggling Swiss-listed company. The 43-year-old South African had accepted Glencore CEO-designate Ivan Glasenberg's offer to run the company, in which Glencore held a 39% stake.
Fresh from orchestrating the mining industry's largest merger between BHP and Billiton, Davis predicted commodity prices were poised to rise after years of depression, driven by China's impending industrialization. His forecast would prove prophetic beyond imagination, as China's growth transformed the natural resources industry, tripling or quadrupling prices and creating a commodities bonanza not seen since the 1970s.
Until the late 1990s, China remained an afterthought for commodity traders. The industry viewed China primarily as an exporter of raw materials-its crude oil fueled California cars, its coal powered Japanese electricity plants, and its rice fed Asian populations.
The shift began in 1978 when Deng Xiaoping set out a new direction rejecting Mao's Cultural Revolution and embracing limited capitalism. This unleashed three decades of spectacular 10% annual growth, transforming China into the world's factory. By 2008, China exported more in a single day than in the entirety of 1978.
China hit the commodity "sweet spot" around 2001, when its GDP per capita reached $3,959. At this income level-between $4,000 and $20,000 per capita-countries typically experience disproportionate increases in commodity demand through industrialization and urbanization.
China's growth triggered the fourth modern commodity "supercycle"-an extended period of prices well above long-term trends lasting decades. Between 1998-2018, emerging markets accounted for 92% of increased metals consumption and 67% of energy consumption growth.
The industry, having cut costs during the 1990s slump, couldn't meet this surge in demand. Prices exploded-oil rose from $10 in 1998 to over $50 by mid-2004, while nickel quadrupled. This created a virtuous cycle where commodity-rich nations prospered and demanded more Chinese goods, accelerating global growth.
Capítulo 10
The Traders' African Ventures
By seven in the morning, the road out of Kolwezi is already gridlocked with trucks, tankers, and jeeps ferrying executives to mining operations. This dusty plateau in the heart of Africa is dominated by the mining industry, from rudimentary roadside tools to the stately Belgian colonial buildings and modern casinos with signs in English, French and Chinese.
The destination becomes clear: Mutanda, one of the world's richest mineral deposits owned by Glencore, with three enormous pits where trucks loaded with copper ore snake up and down like ants.
Mutanda symbolized the 2000s scramble for Africa's resources. As the commodity supercycle gathered pace, miners, oil companies and traders could no longer ignore Africa's riches after decades of neglecting the continent as too remote, underdeveloped and corrupt.
Most African countries export commodities and little else, making the continent's economic fortunes rise and fall with commodity markets. After independence in the 1950s and 1960s, Africa enjoyed a golden era supplying Europe and Asia with materials for post-war reconstruction. But soon, reliance on natural resources became a liability.
By 2001, sub-Saharan Africa's economy was no larger than in 1981. Production plummeted across the continent-Congo's copper output fell from 7% of global supply in 1975 to just 0.3% twenty years later. Zimbabwe collapsed from breadbasket to basket case. Nigeria pumped less oil in 1999 than in 1979. Foreign investors saw Africa as "the hopeless continent."
Then in the early 2000s, the Chinese-led boom upended commodity markets and Africa's fortunes changed dramatically. Traditional supply sources were no longer sufficient, and traders rushed in-not just trading but investing in mines, oilfields and agricultural processing. From 2001 to 2011, sub-Saharan Africa's economy quadrupled in size.
Doing business in Africa meant crossing paths with brutal dictators, corrupt politicians, and rapacious local tycoons. The commodity traders' solution was often outsourcing relationships to agents, fixers and consultants like Ely Calil, whose contact book stretched across the continent.
For Glencore in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the fixer role was fulfilled by Dan Gertler, an Israeli diamond merchant who had struck up an unlikely friendship with the country's youthful president. The DRC contains some of the world's richest mineral deposits-from the uranium used in the Hiroshima bomb to copper for rebuilding post-war Europe to modern cobalt for electric car batteries.
Gertler also cultivated a relationship with Augustin Katumba Mwanke, Kabila's eminence grise who American diplomats described as "shady, even nefarious." As Chinese demand for Congolese metals increased during the commodity boom, Gertler was perfectly positioned as gatekeeper to Congo's mineral riches.
Capítulo 11
Going Public: The Billionaire Factory
In May 2011, Glencore's traders arrived at headquarters before dawn for a momentous revelation: the company was going public, and for the first time, the ownership stakes of its secretive shareholders would be disclosed.
The prospectus revealed staggering wealth: CEO Ivan Glasenberg owned 18.1%, worth $9.3 billion. The IPO minted seven billionaires in total, including Daniel Mate and Telis Mistakidis ($3.5 billion each), Tor Peterson ($3.1 billion), and Alex Beard ($2.7 billion). The top thirteen employee-partners collectively owned 56.6% of Glencore, worth $29 billion.
Glencore's IPO marked a turning point for commodity traders, bringing unprecedented scrutiny to an industry that had operated in the shadows. Though few people knew their names, commodity traders supplied the raw materials essential to modern life, and now their enormous financial power and influence would be exposed to regulators, journalists, and campaigners.
The IPO reflected deeper industry changes. Information was becoming faster and more widely available, eroding traders' edge. Corruption opportunities were diminishing in an increasingly transparent world, while supplier consolidation made traditional middleman roles less profitable.
Despite last-minute scrambling to find a chairman after John Browne backed out, Glencore's 2011 IPO raised $10 billion-London's largest listing ever-valuing the company at nearly $60 billion and placing it in the FTSE 100.
Throughout this period, Glasenberg had never stopped pursuing a merger with Xstrata. With Glencore finally having a market valuation ($60 billion to Xstrata's $67 billion), negotiations intensified under the codename "Everest."
After tough negotiations facilitated by Tony Blair, Glasenberg increased his offer to 3.05 Glencore shares per Xstrata share-with one critical change: Glasenberg, not Davis, would be CEO. Eight months later, the deal completed, creating the world's third-largest mining company.
The IPO represented an inevitable march toward transparency that the trading industry had long resisted. Public status brought unprecedented scrutiny that Glasenberg's team was ill-prepared for: semi-annual financial reporting, detailed press coverage, and exposure of their astonishing profits to everyone from competitors to NGOs and governments.
Capítulo 12
The Future of Commodity Trading
The beginning of the end of an era for commodity traders came with a devastating phone call to Trafigura's Claude Dauphin in 2014. BNP Paribas, Trafigura's largest lender accounting for half its financing, abruptly terminated their decades-long relationship and pulled $2 billion in credit lines.
The French bank had just pleaded guilty to violating U.S. sanctions against Cuba, Sudan and Iran, agreeing to pay nearly $9 billion in a landmark case. This moment marked a turning point: just as commodity traders had reached the zenith of their wealth and global influence, the U.S. government was emerging as an aggressive and unpredictable regulator of their previously unchecked activities.
Following this watershed moment, investigations into traders' business practices proliferated. In Brazil, prosecutors alleged that Vitol, Trafigura and Glencore had paid $31 million in bribes to Petrobras employees between 2011-2014. Vitol eventually admitted to bribing officials in Brazil, Ecuador and Mexico, paying $164 million in penalties.
Beyond legal troubles, the traders face profound structural challenges. First, the democratization of information has eroded their once-formidable information advantage. Second, the reversal of trade liberalization threatens their business model. Third, climate change strikes at their core business, with oil demand potentially peaking around 2030 and coal facing decline.
Yet the COVID-19 crisis of 2020 demonstrated the traders' continued importance. As global markets collapsed, they stepped in as buyers of last resort, deploying billions at lightning speed when no one else could match their capacity or risk appetite.
The old guard is passing-Marc Rich died in 2013, Claude Dauphin in 2015, Ian Taylor in 2020, and Ivan Glasenberg announcing retirement in 2021. Their high-risk, edge-walking style of trading faces extinction under pressure from banks, regulators, and changing societal expectations.
Many traders are diversifying away from pure trading-Cargill now plans for trading to comprise just a third of profits, while Glasenberg remarkably claims "trading is not a big part of the company anymore" at Glencore.
Yet predictions of the industry's death are premature. As long as natural resources move around the world, traders will exploit market inefficiencies and deploy unique financial firepower and agility. Their role as clearing-houses for essential commodities still gives them extraordinary economic and political power.
The world is changing, but its resources still need trading. After decades in the shadows, the commodity traders' influence can no longer be ignored.
