Claude Dauphin (10 June 1951 – 30 September 2015) was a French billionaire businessman and executive chairman of Trafigura Beheer BV, a company specialising in commodity trading (oil, metals, ores).

In March of that year, he acquired an existing shell business based in the Netherlands, Trafigura Beheer B.V., to form a rival commodities trading firm.

In 2000 Trafigura acquired Puma Energy, a Latin American mid- and downstream company which subsequently expanded and by 2014 operated from 45 countries and had revenues of $13.4 billion.

[8] In his leadership position with the company, Dauphin was an important figure in Trafigura's response to the 2006 Ivory Coast toxic waste dump environmental disaster.

After local contracting company Tommy dumped 500 tonnes of waste at landfill sites around the port of Abidjan, Dauphin led a Trafigura delegation to Ivory Coast to assist the authorities and provide medical support and equipment.

[11][12] Trafigura denied responsibility and culpability for the dumping incident but, with the executives still in custody, agreed to pay $198 million[13] in order to secure the release[14] of its employees on February 12, 2007.

In the weeks prior to his death, Dauphin traveled to Nigeria to secure an oil swaps contract with the government of Muhammadu Buhari and to Angola to maintain Trafigura's status as the country's refined products supplier.