6. Leading Global Commodity Companies

The ABCD firms: Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Bunge, Cargill, and Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) are the 4 dominant players in global agricultural commodity trading.

Together, they control a massive share of the world's grain, oilseed, sugar, coffee, and soft commodity flows, operating across every stage of the supply chain: farming inputs, storage, logistics, processing, and international trade.

For more than a century, these companies have shaped global food prices, managed cross-border supply risks, and acted as the backbone of world agriculture. Their global reach, deep infrastructure networks, and expertise in risk management make them central to how food moves from farms to consumers around the world.

6.1 Agriculture & Food

🇺🇸 Cargill (USA)
One of the world’s largest privately-held commodity traders spanning grains, oilseeds, meat, cocoa, and food ingredients.

🇺🇸 Archer Daniels Midland - ADM (USA)
A global agribusiness giant involved in grain trading, oilseed processing, animal feed, and biofuel production.

🇺🇸 Bunge Global SA (USA)
Major player in oilseeds, grains, crushing, refining, and global agricultural exports.

🇳🇱 Louis Dreyfus Company - LDC (Netherlands)
A key member of the ABCD firms, trading sugar, grains, coffee, cotton, and juice globally.

🇸🇬 Wilmar International (Singapore)
One of Asia’s largest agribusiness groups with major operations in palm oil, sugar refining, and grain processing across global supply chains.

🇨🇭 Olam Group (Singapore/Switzerland historically)
A leading food and agribusiness trader handling cocoa, coffee, spices, nuts, and grains with deep origins in emerging markets.

🇫🇷 Sucden (France)
A global soft-commodities trader specializing in sugar, cocoa, and coffee, with strong logistics and sourcing networks.

🇧🇷 JBS (Brazil)
The world’s largest meat producer, involved in beef, poultry, pork, leather, and global protein supply.

🇨🇳 COFCO (China)
China’s largest state-owned food and agriculture company, trading grains, oils, sugar, and food commodities worldwide.

🇺🇸 Tyson Foods (USA)
One of the biggest global producers of beef, poultry, and prepared meat products.

🇩🇰 Danish Crown (Denmark)
A major European meat processor and exporter, primarily focused on pork and beef commodities.

6.2 Energy & Oil

🇳🇱 Vitol (Netherlands/Switzerland)
The world's largest independent energy trader, handling crude oil, refined products, natural gas, and power markets.

🇨🇭 Gunvor (Switzerland/Cyprus)
A major global trader of crude oil, refined products, and LNG, with strong logistics and shipping operations.

🇨🇭 Mercuria Energy (Switzerland)
A diversified energy and commodities firm trading oil, gas, power, metals, and rapidly expanding into renewables.

🇸🇦 Aramco Trading (Saudi Arabia)
The trading arm of Saudi Aramco, managing global flows of crude oil, refined products, petrochemicals, and shipping.

🇺🇸 Koch Industries (USA)
A large private conglomerate active in energy, chemicals, refining, trading, and industrial commodities.

🇶🇦 QatarEnergy Trading (Qatar)
The state energy trader specializing in LNG and natural gas exports, a global leader in gas markets.

🇳🇴 Equinor (Norway)
A major European energy company trading oil, natural gas, and increasingly focused on offshore wind and renewables.

🇬🇧 BP (UK)
A global integrated energy company active in oil, gas, renewables, trading, and fuel supply chains.

🇳🇱 Shell Trading (Netherlands/UK)
The trading arm of Shell managing crude oil, refined products, LNG, power, carbon credits, and shipping.

🇺🇸 ExxonMobil (USA)
One of the world's largest oil and gas companies with extensive upstream, downstream, and chemical operations.

🇫🇷 TotalEnergies (France)
An integrated energy major trading oil, gas, power, LNG, and expanding aggressively into renewables.

6.3 Metals & Minerals

🇨🇭 Glencore (Switzerland)
One of the world’s largest commodity groups, trading and producing metals, minerals, and energy products.

🇸🇬 Trafigura (Singapore/Switzerland)
A major global trader specializing in metals, concentrates, and industrial raw materials.

🇦🇺 BHP (Australia)
A leading diversified miner producing iron ore, copper, nickel, and other industrial metals.

🇬🇧🇦🇺 Rio Tinto (UK/Australia)
A global mining major focused on copper, aluminium, iron ore, and strategic minerals.

🇧🇷 Vale (Brazil)
The world’s biggest iron ore producer with major operations in nickel and base metals.

🇺🇸 Freeport-McMoRan (USA)
One of the largest publicly traded copper producers, also active in gold mining.

🇬🇧 Anglo American (UK)
A diversified mining group producing copper, platinum group metals (PGMs), iron ore, and diamonds.

🇷🇺 Nornickel (Russia)
A leading global producer of nickel, palladium, and other key industrial metals.

🇨🇦 Teck Resources (Canada)
A major miner of copper, zinc, and metallurgical coal with operations across the Americas.

🇨🇦 Barrick Gold (Canada)
One of the world’s top gold mining companies with significant copper assets.

🇺🇸 Alcoa (USA)
A global leader in aluminium production, bauxite mining, and alumina refining.

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