By Tim McLaughlin
Nov 11 (Reuters) - A week before the United States invaded Venezuela in January and captured its authoritarian leader, US Vice President J.D. Vance flew in Air Force Two for a visit to Montana's Yellowstone Club, an ultra-exclusive ski and golf resort.
There, he met an old friend and early financier of his political career, John Addison, a gasoline trader with commodities giant Vitol, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Flight records reviewed by Reuters show Addison's
private Embraer jet and Vance's vice-presidential plane together on the tarmac at the Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport, about an hour's drive from the resort, on Dec. 27, a week before the invasion.
Vance and Addison talked about Venezuela, according to the person, who was given an account of the meeting from Addison. Vance was particularly interested to know how quickly Venezuelan crude could be sold if the US hypothetically gained control of the country's oil supplies, the person said. Addison assured Vance that Vitol was uniquely placed to do that job.
For this article, both Addison and Vance's office denied having the Dec. 27 meeting in Montana. "And anyone who says so is absolutely making it up because I've never told a single soul that was the case," Addison told Reuters.
But Addison confirmed to Reuters that on Jan. 5 – two days after the operation that unseated Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and killed up to 100 people – US Energy Secretary Chris Wright called him at his desk in Houston with an irresistible offer.
President Donald Trump's administration was planning to start selling the South American OPEC nation's crude to global buyers to finance its coming political transition, and Wright wanted to know from Addison if Vitol wanted the job.
"I thought that he was just going to call to get an update on the market,'" Addison told Reuters in a recent interview. "The phone call went a different way."
The Department of Energy confirmed Wright called Addison Jan. 5 to discuss Venezuela.
Within days, Vitol and its rival Trafigura landed special licenses to sell Venezuela's oil, and the companies have since earned hundreds of millions of dollars marketing the crude.
The details of how Vitol secured one of the administration's most coveted energy licenses have not previously been reported.
Addison, 48, wasn't the obvious choice to receive such a call from Wright. He was a senior trader at Vitol, not the firm's regional CEO. And his specialty was buying and selling US gasoline, not Latin American crude oil.
But Vance had told Wright that Addison was trustworthy, paving the way for the call, Addison told Reuters.
A US official confirmed to Reuters on condition of anonymity that Vance had told Wright in a conversation that Addison was a trustworthy person in the energy industry. The official said that conversation happened at least a year before the Jan. 5 phone call.
The Department of Energy told Reuters in a statement that Vance and Wright never discussed the sales of Venezuelan oil, and that the department picked Vitol because it is the largest energy and commodity trader in the world.
The Montana meeting and the unusually prominent role played by Addison in securing the lucrative contract raise fresh questions among Democratic lawmakers about how personal connections might have influenced access to government business after the Venezuela operation.
Robert Garcia, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee and its incoming chair, sent a letter to the heads of both Vitol and Trafigura in January asking questions about the circumstances under which they secured the licenses.
Garcia said in a statement at the time he was concerned about Vitol's involvement in part because of Addison's history of pro-Trump political donations. Garcia also expressed concern that Vitol and Trafigura may have been given advance notice of military action against Venezuela.
"For months, Oversight Democrats have been demanding answers about the Trump Administration's massive Venezuelan oil deal and whether oil-company insiders received advance warning of military action against Venezuela," Garcia told Reuters.
"New reporting that JD Vance met with a senior Vitol trader before Maduro's capture raises even more questions about who knew what and when," he said.
Vitol and Trafigura declined to comment on whether they had answered Garcia's letter, but both told Reuters they had been given no advance knowledge of US military operations in Venezuela.
Typically, large US government contracts are awarded in a competitive bidding process to ensure transparency, prevent favoritism, and secure the best possible financial returns to taxpayers.
But the Trump administration has defended its decision to skip that process, arguing that moving fast after Maduro was seized was critical to stabilizing Venezuela's struggling economy and ensuring that everyday services and debt restructuring efforts received immediate funding.
BIG MONEY
Venezuela sits on top of the world's largest crude-oil reserves, but its production levels had dropped below a third of their peaks after years of under-investment, mismanagement and crippling sanctions.
Trump said after the January invasion that the US intends to control Venezuela's crude and revenues indefinitely and wants to attract $100 billion in investment from US oil companies to revitalize the country's production. He argues this would bolster US energy security by raising volumes of available supply in the Western Hemisphere.
So far, the biggest beneficiaries in the aftermath of the US operation in Venezuela have been Vitol and Trafigura. Trafigura was offered its license from the US government to sell Venezuelan oil days after Vitol, at some point during the second week of January, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Tom Seng, an energy finance expert and professor at Texas Christian University, estimated that the traders were making between $3 and $3.50 in profit on every barrel of Venezuelan oil sold. He based the estimate on ongoing market conditions and shipping rates, and said the returns amounted to a roughly 3.5% to 4% profit margin.
Those returns would translate to hundreds of millions of dollars in profit on the Venezuelan crude contract because the country has exported over 200 million barrels of crude oil so far this year, according to US government data.
Vitol's operating profit margins over the past three years have ranged between 1% and 3%, according to a Reuters review of its annual reports. The privately held trading firms do not disclose profits from individual transactions and the estimates on their profit margins and volumes of oil they have sold could not be independently verified.
Trafigura and Vitol told Reuters they could not comment on the terms of their commercial agreements with Venezuela's state-owned oil company PDVSA to sell the oil because they are confidential.
More recently, Trump announced the US had gained access to about a fifth of Venezuela's crude reserves through a partnership with North American Blue Energy Partners, one of Venezuela's largest privately-owned oil producers.
The company is owned by billionaire Alejandro Betancourt, who was until recently the target of US money-laundering investigations involving funds embezzled from PDVSA. The company's deal with Washington grants the US a 35% stake in its corporate parent and the right to buy 20% of output at production cost.
Reuters was unable to determine if Vitol or Trafigura was marketing any of NABEP's current oil production of roughly 220,000 barrels per day.
Vitol said it has a commercial relationship with NABEP, but no long-term contract. It did not provide details of the commercial relationship.
Trafigura did not comment when asked.
A lawyer for Betancourt said allegations against Betancourt have been examined extensively by authorities in multiple jurisdictions, and no charges have been brought against him.
AT THE WHITE HOUSE
Things moved quickly after Addison and Wright spoke.
By Jan. 9, both Vitol and Trafigura had landed their licenses and Addison was in the White House, rubbing shoulders with the CEOs of ExxonMobil and Chevron in a televised meeting with Trump over the future of Venezuela's oil industry.
"We're here to ensure that you are going to be able to move all of this oil all around the world at the best price possible so that the influence that you have over the Venezuelans will ensure that you get what you want," Addison told Trump during the televised meeting.
Vitol's regional CEO Ben Marshall was also at the meeting, and thanked Trump for the opportunity to market Venezuela's oil.
Vitol told Reuters Addison did not have the technical knowledge to negotiate an international crude contract given his expertise as a gasoline trader, and had gotten Marshall and the crude team involved after the Jan. 5 call.
Trafigura was represented at the meeting by its Chief Executive Officer, Richard Holtum.
Addison had been an early backer of Vance, contributing $300,000 in 2022 to the Protect Ohio Values Political Action Committee to help Vance's successful bid for one of Ohio's US Senate seats, Federal Election Commission records show.
Later, Addison and his wife, Shannon, contributed $7 million in 2024 to political action committees, including $5 million to Make America Great Again, to help secure Trump's second term in the White House, according to the FEC records.
Addison had admired Vance's brand of conservative politics, according to three people familiar with the relationship.
Around this time, as the pair were bonding over shared political perspectives, Addison was closing a more troubled chapter in his career. Vitol and SK Energy in 2024 settled a gasoline price manipulation case with the state of California for $50 million following a decade-long legal battle. Addison had been named as the most senior Vitol executive in the alleged scheme.
Neither Vitol nor Addison admitted any wrongdoing.
Vitol declined to comment on the case for this article.
Addison did not return messages seeking comment about the case.
The following year, in 2025, Addison bought a new Embraer jet, according to Federal Aviation Administration records. The plane, which listed for around $14 million, was used for his increasingly frequent flights to Montana's Yellowstone Club, where Addison says he is now building a home, putting him in the company of billionaires, tech moguls and Hollywood celebrities.
Before construction began, Addison's undeveloped acre of land had an assessed value of $16.4 million, according to Montana Department of Revenue records.
Wright also has a residence near the Yellowstone Club with a value of $36.2 million, the records show.
Addison said the Jan. 5 call from Wright was a highlight of his 17-year career at Vitol.
"I do feel very prideful and very patriotic that I was called by the government, by Chris Wright, in order to help them transact this deal," Addison told Reuters.
Landing the Venezuela contract was also his swan song. He announced his retirement from the company at the end of March to focus on politics and energy. He has since been named chairman of Wright’s energy policy advisory board, which held its inaugural meeting in July.
An internal Vitol memo about his retirement, seen by Reuters, described him as "one of the most successful traders in the history of the firm."
(Reporting by Tim McLaughlin; Editing by Richard Valdmanis)
