By Amanda Cooper and Dmitry Zhdannikov
LONDON, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Oil traders are profitinghandsomely from a crude price crash to near an 11-year low,even as it forces energy companies around the globe to slashcosts and postpone projects.
From listed giant Glencore through unlisted Swissprivately-held Trafigura, to the trading desks of majors BP and Shell, traders have often done well in timesof oil price downturns, and markedly so this time around.
On Monday, Trafigura, which trades roughly 3 percent ofglobal oil, reported record earnings just daysafter Glencore said it was sticking to its trading earningguidance even though it cut production at some mines and reducedinventories.
BP and Shell have repeatedly cited trading as one of thedivisions that helped withstand the storm of low oil prices andboosted downstream earnings by hundreds of millions of dollars.
The recipe is simple - volatility and scale, according toTrafigura.
"Our business is very much related to physical trading. Sowhen you have volatility, it multiplies the sources of arbitrageon the physical trading markets and, the bigger your business,the better. It is at the end of the day a volume game,"Trafigura's chief financial officer Christophe Salmon said.
Salmon said arbitrages were working both geographically -between regions of good and bad supply - and along the timeprice curves when immediate prices were lower or higher thanforward prices.
Immediate flat price swings are most often offset by tradersthrough hedging their positions, he added.
Using oil storage, now a popular ploy, helped tradersexploit a contango price structure in which immediate deliveryoil is discounted, and so can be stored and sold later at ahealthy profit
"The emergence of contango price structures createdsignificant opportunities," said Jose Larocca, Trafigura's headof crude oil.
"We responded by aggressively expanding our access tostorage capacity around the world and using our logisticalassets to maximum advantage in support of our trading activity,"he said in the annual report.
"Looking ahead into 2016, we expect the gasoline market toremain over supplied and storage to be an increasingly importantsuccess factor," Larocca said, adding the firm would invest inacquiring additional capacity.
Global imbalance in diesel, naphtha and condensate alsooffered good profit opportunities as well as rising trading inliquefied natural gas, helped by demand from new importers suchas Egypt and growing supply.
Trafigura is the first big commodity trading house to reportresults as its reporting period is from September to September.Its rival such as Vitol, Glencore, Mercuria and Gunvor willreport full 2015 results in February or later. (Editing by William Hardy)
