One of the world’s most influential oil traders is to retire next year after a career in which he has brought in huge profits for his employers at BP and earned hundreds of millions for himself.
Donald Porteous, who is still only in his early 40s, is the head of crude at BP, working on one of the world’s biggest oil trading desks, which employs about 1,800 staff around the world.
Based in Chicago, the centre of BP’s US crude trading operation, Mr Porteus is well known for earning far more than Bob Dudley, the oil giant’s chief executive, who was paid $12.7 million last year. BP does not reveal traders’ pay because they are not executives.
Known as the “King of Cushing” — after a giant oil storage hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, that is the largest crude facility in the world — Mr Porteous earned bumper profits for BP. The last time the group broke out a figure for its oil trading division, in 2005, it reported profits of $2.7 billion — about 10 per cent of total profits.
Mr Porteous is said to be leaving the group for “personal reasons”. BP declined comment yesterday.