When people hear ‘oil trading’, their minds quickly shift to OPEC, embargoes and price shocks. But for those who have spent lives in the business, it is something very different. Oil trading is a human story—part adrenaline, part calculation, and always a fair bit of theatre. The market, for all its complexities, is ultimately a social construct. And for the 50 years, it has been built by people.
The modern oil market took shape in the early 1980s, when the dominance of the majors began to fade and deregulation swept through Western economies. Even OPEC could not stand in its way. By the end of the decade, crude prices were increasingly determined by transparent benchmarks and real-time trading on futures markets and various electronic platforms.
At the same time, a new class of oil trader emerged: fast-moving, profit-driven, opportunistic and often independent. These were not corporate lifers but dealmakers who thrived in a volatile world of shifting prices and turbulent politics. A few became spectacularly wealthy. Most did not. But nearly all agree: oil trading is like no other job.
Deals over drinks – and data
From London pubs to Paris salons, from broker ski trips to smoky late-night bars in London, Houston or Singapore, trading was always social. Deals were made with a simple word: ‘done’. Reputations were everything. Traders lived their positions. Holidays were often cut short, weekends filled with phone calls and every geopolitical tremor mattered.
Yet for all the camaraderie, it was never easy. The stress, the stakes and the near-misses took a toll. Some took to alcohol or drugs, marriages were broken and others simply left the ‘asylum.’ And still, most would not have traded it for anything else. It is a profession built on instinct, ego and lots of good information. That shared pressure forges bonds. It is also terrible for your blood pressure.
From the pit to the cloud
Over time, the business changed. The noisy, jacket-clad chaos of the trading floor gave way to quieter, tech-driven offices. The swagger of the street-smart trader yielded to the data-savvy quant and the emotionally intelligent polymath. Where instinct once ruled, models based on AI and latency now matter.
Technology brought speed. What once took days to close a single physical trade was compressed into minutes and then milliseconds. Forward curves, futures and paper barrels turned the market into a 24/7 machine. Even lunch became optional.
Meanwhile, trading firms professionalised. Sales, structuring, quant research and analytics became core capabilities. What was once a solo game turned into a team sport.
Oil’s quiet power
Despite its scale, oil trading remains oddly invisible. Traders are not household names. There are no oil-trading moguls on the covers of business magazines. That is partly by design. The industry prefers it that way: quiet, opaque and under the radar.
Yet the shadow has a darker side. Since President Richard Nixon’s Emergency Petroleum Allocation Act in the 1970s, traders have learned to exploit arbitrage between markets, jurisdictions and legal systems. Marc Rich and Pincus Green may not have been the first, but they perfected the playbook: mix domestic and foreign barrels, route deals through tax havens and treat legality as just another problem to be solved or worry about later.
Their ‘market fundamentalism’, where profit trumps all, still echoes. In places where oil rights sat in the hands of underpaid officials, bribery was often not optional. It was how the game was often played. The barrels moved, and the world looked the other way. Big-name refiners often ended up with that crude oil. How much they knew is an open question.
Transparency has grown. Regulation is stronger. But temptation persists. Whether it is front-running, spoofing or subtle forms of market manipulation, paper trading has its own grey areas. And physical trades in sanctioned regions, whether it is Iran, Venezuela, or Russia, still attract adventurous players.
But the business is much cleaner than it was. Price discovery is faster. Oil tankers are easily tracked, and shady deals are easier to spot. Enforcement is better informed and has teeth. And the old tolerance for cowboy tactics is fading. Many firms now put real effort into compliance and ethics, even as they try to stay competitive.
Why it matters
Here is the paradox: the more we transition away from oil, the more critical it becomes to understand how the market works. Even now, oil touches everything: from transport and toys to energy security. And trading it is not just about profit. It is about getting energy from where it is to where it is needed, often under extraordinarily difficult circumstances.
Traders thrive on complexity, volatility and risk. These qualities can destabilise, but they also drive efficiency. If you want barrels to flow smoothly, you need people who know how to handle chaos and, of course, profit from it.
Governments often forget this. Price caps, sanctions and export bans may serve short-term goals, but they rarely produce the intended outcome. Cap Russian oil and you create a shadow fleet and murky deals under the radar. Freeze domestic prices, and you get shortages. The river of money always finds a way around the badly constructed dam.
Legislate values, not prices
If we want to steer the river, we need to shape the landscape, not build dams. That means enforcing values such as transparency, fair competition and ecological responsibility, and not trying to fix prices. Markets are messengers. Shooting messengers does not solve the problem.
Least-cost exchange is good. It is efficient. But it needs boundaries. We do not need to vilify traders. We need to regulate for outcomes that align with our social and environmental goals.
Trust, still everything
Despite all the technological changes—such as electronic platforms, algorithms and AI—the essential truth remains: trading runs on trust. Trust in prices, trust in process and above all, trust in people. The deals that matter are still made by individuals, not just systems. And that trust is hard-won but easily lost. In the era of Donald Trump, that has become more obvious than ever.
Over 50 years, oil trading has evolved from rough-and-tumble to a refined, but never boring business. It remains a unique profession: blending finance, logistics, politics and personal relationships. As long as oil flows, traders will be there, following the path of least resistance and greatest reward.
They will, as they always have done, ride the river of money.
Dr Adi Imsirovic is a lecturer in MSc course in Energy Systems, University of Oxford, and director of Surrey Energy, a consultancy. This article is based on the forthcoming book, The Rivers of Money: A Social and Economic History of Modern Oil Trading, co-written with Colin Bryce, to be published in July this year by Palgrave. The book is available to pre-order here.
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