New Data: Two Oil Traders Increased Crude Shipments to Israel During Gaza Genocide

Amsterdam, Netherlands – New research from Oil Change International and SOMO, supported by Data Desk, Behind the Barrel: The Oil Traders Fueling Israel’s Genocide, reveals how two little-known private companies – Vitol and Heritage Petroleum FZCO – have risen as important traders of crude oil to Israel since it began its genocide against Palestinians. Together, these two companies delivered 22 million barrels of crude oil between October 2023 and June 2026, representing 11 per cent of the country’s crude oil imports during the genocide. The oil delivered by these companies goes to Israeli refineries that produce fuels that, among other things, are used by the military.

Key findings:

• Vitol, sometimes called “the biggest company you’ve never heard of,” delivered almost 14 million barrels. In 2025, Vitol increased its deliveries to more than four times its average annual volume between 2020 and 2024.
• Heritage Petroleum was founded in December 2023. Less than a year later, it began shipping crude oil to Israel. It has since chartered 8.3 million barrels across ten shipments, becoming Israel’s second-largest named crude oil charterer over the past year (July 2025 to June 2026).
• On 2 May 2024, Türkiye’s Ministry of Trade announced that it had suspended all trade with Israel as a direct response to Israel’s crimes in Gaza. Yet our data show that just six months later, Heritage began chartering crude oil to Israel, with all shipments departing from Türkiye.

Countries implicated:
To comply with their obligations under the Genocide Convention and adhere to the ICJ’s weighty recommendations on trade and economic relations with Israel vis-à-vis its occupation of Palestine, states should prevent the export and transport of oil to Israel. All states should take effective regulatory measures to ensure that corporations domiciled in their jurisdiction cannot trade or facilitate the shipment of crude oil to Israeli refineries.

Specifically identified in this analysis of Vitol and Heritage-chartered shipments:

• Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, and all other oil-exporting countries should impose an oil embargo on Israel, and must ensure contractually, for example through an end-user declaration, that companies buying their oil do not supply or facilitate supply to Israel.
• Türkiye should take robust measures to enforce its trade ban including by preventing the transit of crude via its territory if it is destined for export to Israel’s refineries. It should not allow companies to facilitate the transit, docking, and servicing at their ports of vessels carrying or getting loaded with crude oil destined for Israel.
• The United Arab Emirates, Greece, Russia, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Luxembourg – countries home to entities that facilitate oil trading – should establish prohibitions on facilitating any form of trade or transport of oil to Israel as an action to give force and effect to their obligations under international law.

Some countries and companies continue to ship fossil fuels to Israel even after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s actions are unlawful, and a UN Commission concluded that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. By supporting Israeli military operations that have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, including over 20,000 children, states risk becoming complicit in genocide under international law under the Genocide Convention.

Andy Rowell, Oil Change International, said:
“Companies that provide crude oil to Israel, which is committing genocide against Palestinians, risk becoming complicit under international law including the Genocide Convention. We are calling on the UAE, Greece, Russia, the UK, Switzerland, and Luxembourg to hold oil trading companies domiciled in their jurisdictions – like Vitol and Heritage Petroleum – to account. The UK, in particular, should act as part of its promised reset of relations with Israel.”

Lydia de Leeuw, SOMO, said:
“A symbolic trade ban does nothing to save lives in Palestine, and gives the false impression that Türkiye is meeting its obligation under the Genocide Convention ‘to employ all means reasonably available to them’ to stop the genocide. Oil traders, shipping companies, and other companies involved in Israel’s oil supply continue their business as usual due to a glaring lack of political will among the States where they operate or are domiciled to put an end to Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians. If international law is to mean anything, States need to impose a long-overdue oil embargo on Israel.”

Naish Gawen, Data Desk said:
“This research sheds light on companies who not only have failed to cease trading oil to Israel, but have actually increased this trade since October 2023. The data reveals that words and commitments are not always aligned with the actual trade flows to Israel. With countries like Türkiye ostensibly implementing a trade ban, it is important that there is accountability over these claims. Oil and gas companies should not enjoy a shroud of secrecy over their operations, especially when they are complicit in powering a genocide.”

Mohammed Usrof, Executive Director, Palestinian Institute for Climate Strategy (PICS):
“This briefing confirms what Palestinian-led and worker-led research has been warning: Israel’s genocide continues, for its third year, not just thanks to the weapons manufacturers, but to the global energy supply chain fueling it: its producers, traders, ports, pipelines, refineries, insurers, and complicit states. Vitol and Heritage Petroleum are core actors, and not to be mistaken for peripheral players, especially as they continue moving crude to Israeli refineries during a genocide. These actors are helping sustain the material infrastructure of Israel’s military, settlements, and apartheid economy. An energy embargo on Israel cannot be symbolic, for it is a concrete demand to cut off the logistics of genocide, occupation and fossil imperialism.”

A spokesperson for the Global Energy Embargo for Palestine (GEEP), said:
“Crude oil moves around the world as a seemingly neutral commodity, yet repeated rounds of research since October 2023 have demonstrated that it fuels genocide and occupation. Despite the case of state-enforced energy embargoes and worker-led actions in key locations to stem crude oil flow to Israel, the absence of legal traceability requirements of the energy trade undermine these actions. And the obscurity is essential to the profits of commodity traders that have a long history of swooping in to move crude oil in moments of war and conflict. An urgent multilateral agreement that treats energy on par with arms and closes these loopholes is vital to put an end to these flows.”

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Notes to the editor:
To read the full report and explore our previous reports on Israel’s fuel supply, visit Behind the Barrel: oilchange.org/behind-the-barrel