Vitol: world's biggest energy trader emerges from the shadows

Company's CEO Ian Taylor has kept a low profile but is finally breaking cover to lobby against EU plans to tighten regulation of commodity trading

"The biggest company you've never heard of" is a label regularly bandied around but is well-deserved by the global trading firm with a name more suited to a household cleaning product: Vitol.

You will not hear its name at this week's Opec meeting in Vienna or have heard it quoted on the subject of the significant rise in oil prices over the past four months, but a Saudi oil minister would know the name Vitol as they would Shell or BP.