How a 31-year-old man made $250 million in 30 months. It all started after the invasion of Ukraine
No Russian gas in the EU. Photo credit: social media / WillWest News / Profimedia
Christopher Eppinger, a 31-year-old man originally from Germany, obtained, in 30 months, personal profits of more than 250 million dollars. The young man made his fortune amid turmoil in energy markets caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and subsequent global sanctions, the Financial Times reports.
Eppinger generously affords the luxury. He lives in a €7 million villa in Cannes, southern France, which is undergoing a €14 million renovation, and also owns a €5 million property that he is renovating for his parents.
They are just a small part of its growing global portfolio, which includes several homes in Dubai. By the time he is 40, he also dreams of buying an island.
Between 2022 and 2025, the man traded $2 billion worth of oil, making a personal profit of over $250 million.
He is by no means the only trader who made a fortune amid the chaos created in the world oil market after the invasion of Ukraine. But Eppinger, who was 27 when the war began, is almost certainly the youngest.
In the wake of the 2022 invasion, Western powers responded to Russian aggression with sweeping sanctions, and some of the world's biggest traders, such as BP and Shell, pulled out of Russia.
Because oil was eventually deemed too important to the global economy, the West eventually established a price ceiling designed to allow Russia to continue exporting while limiting the revenue it could earn. It was the perfect time for people willing to take risks.
The price cap has proven to be particularly helpful, Eppinger said. “At first it was kind of a black box,” but then “I was sure I could do it in a legal setting,” the young man said. If there had been a full embargo, as some traders expected, then Russia would not have been touched at all.
Through his company, CE Energy, Eppinger bought and sold Russian oil through firms in Dubai, such as Tejarinaft, and Kazakhstan. Eppinger and his lawyers said all of his transactions followed Western rules and that his firm, CE Energy, completely stopped trading Russian oil in February.
Eppinger was born in a small town north of Hamburg in 1994 into a middle-class family. His parents, both born in the Soviet Union, had moved to Germany in the 1980s. His mother was a doctor and his father worked as an engineer. Eppinger says all he ever wanted was to be an oil trader.
