TotalEnergies and Bapco Launch Middle East Trading Joint Venture
France’s TotalEnergies and Bahrain’s state-owned Bapco Energies have officially launched BxT Trading, a 50/50 trading joint venture backed by production flows from Bapco Energies’ refinery. The new entity is positioned as a competitive regional trading player, designed to maximize downstream value and broaden access to international markets for Bahraini oil products.
The signing ceremony took place in Abu Dhabi and was attended by senior leadership from both sides, including Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Chairman of Bapco Energies, and TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné. The venture will focus on physical oil trading while also building advanced capabilities in pricing, analytics, and risk management.
For Bapco Energies, the joint venture provides direct access to TotalEnergies’ global trading expertise and infrastructure. This includes exposure to established international hubs in Geneva, Houston, and Singapore, as well as proven risk management and market optimization systems. The move strengthens Bahrain’s downstream value chain at a time when national oil companies across the Middle East are seeking greater control over marketing and trading functions.
For TotalEnergies, BxT Trading deepens its commercial footprint in the Middle East, a region that remains central to global crude and refined product flows. The company already maintains trading operations in the region, but the Bahrain-based platform is intended to improve responsiveness to regional market dynamics and customer demand.
The launch of BxT Trading fits into a wider trend of Middle Eastern producers moving downstream and into trading to capture additional margin beyond upstream production. National oil companies in the Gulf have increasingly partnered with international majors to accelerate capability building in trading, logistics, and portfolio optimization.
Bahrain, while smaller than its regional peers, has been investing heavily in its refining and downstream sector in recent years. Leveraging refinery-linked trading flows allows the kingdom to position itself as a more active participant in international energy markets rather than a passive price taker.
Source: Oilprice