A little-known Swiss trading company, Lytton SA, played a key role in the transit of an oil supertanker through the Strait of Hormuz, according to people familiar with the matter. The vessel's stop-start journey captivated the oil market earlier this month.
Based in Geneva, Lytton was established in 2024 by former Trafigura Group oil trader Hakim Darbouche and Alan Konyar, a onetime executive of Onex DMCC. The firm has ties to Iraq and is known for an agreement to market oil products from the Taurus refinery in the Kurdistan region. It also trades crude, oil products, and naphtha in the Mediterranean and East Asia.
The supertanker, Agios Fanourios I, held just under two million barrels of crude destined for PetroVietnam Oil Corp. It was first halted by Iranian authorities and then by a U.S. naval blockade. It only passed the blockade after intervention from Vietnam's state oil company. Lytton assumed responsibility for getting the oil through Hormuz and its onward journey.
The reward for this cargo was substantial: Lytton bought the oil at Iraq's Basrah port at a discount of US$18 a barrel to benchmark prices. Based on premiums for oil outside the Persian Gulf, this implies a gross profit of approximately US$60 million. This is the latest sign of how traders are profiting from the historic disruption to commodity markets caused by the war in Iran.
Iraq's state oil company has been offering cargoes for discounts of as much as US$33.40 a barrel to anyone willing to buy inside the Gulf and brave exit. The world's top oil merchants are enjoying some of their best results on record, with trading margins as high as US$20 to US$30 a barrel, compared to normal levels of a few cents. The biggest trading houses leverage their scale, but smaller firms like Lytton face greater risks shepherding cargo worth hundreds of millions of dollars through Hormuz.
Lytton and PetroVietnam declined to comment. Eastern Mediterranean Maritime, manager of the Agios Fanourios I, said it was unaware of any involvement by firms other than Vietnam's and Iraq's state oil companies.
