Commodity Trading Giant Vitol Downsizes China Coal Business

Vitol Group, the commodity trading giant, is reducing its thermal coal trading business in China that it has recently acquired, sources familiar with the plans told Reuters on Friday. Vitol is laying off coal traders in China, leaving just one trader in the Beijing office, according to Reuters’s sources. Vitol, which is the world’s biggest independent oil trader by volumes, last year bought Asian energy products and industrial raw materials trader Noble Resources Trading Limited for $209 million. At the time, Vitol said that Noble Resources…