Hello, welcome to the program. Now, when I tell you that Vitol, a commodities trading company that most people have never heard of, has a turnover of $150 billion a year, you'll understand why we want to talk about our topic today. Commodities. This is a sector of such fundamental importance to the world economy, and yet one that is so little understood. As long as it works,

we don't think much about it. From oil to iron ore, coal to cotton to pork bellies, they're all

produced, bought and sold through what can sometimes appear to be a complicated system,

from producers to the trading middlemen and beyond. So our intention is to lift the bonnet on this

industry and take a look at the engine and how well it's working. And I have three guests

intimately tied up with the whole sector to help. And first up is Andrew Gow's head of corporate

affairs at a company called Trafigura. Just tell us what the kind of size of Trafigura is and what you do, Andrew.

Well, Trafigura is also a 150-odd billion dollars turnover company.

It's existed for only 25 years and has become one of the leading traders of oil and refined products, on the one hand, non-ferrous metals, meaning copper, aluminium and the like, and bulk minerals, which is coal and iron ore. So we're a top three player in all the products

we trade. Right. So Glencore, Vitol, these are companies that are all in this sector. Now,

you call yourself a trading company. Is it just trading or should we think of you as a company

that also mines, transports,

organisers, logistics and stores as well? In a way, trading is an unfortunate tag because it

gets tied up in people's minds with sort of financial speculation and the, if you like, the financial

crisis and so forth. Actually, trading in the sense

that we do it is a very physical business. It's a logistical business. It's organizing the supply

chain for commodities from producers where they come out of the ground, buying them there,

transporting them, risk managing all the way to the processes, the refiners and the smelters, and then on

to the end consumer. So we're, if you like, the sort of DHL of commodities with the difference

that we actually take ownership of the commodities while they're on the way. Right. So you have a

financial stake in the commodities, but you do, you kind of get your hands dirty and you might touch them at some

point in the process. Absolutely. Risk managing the physical handling of commodities and the finance

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