A joint investigation by two leading research organizations, Oil Change International (OCI) and the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), has pulled back the curtain on a little-scrutinized network of oil traders that have become among the largest suppliers of crude oil to Israel during the ongoing military campaign in Gaza. The investigation identifies Swiss-based Vitol and Dubai-founded Heritage Petroleum FZCO as the key players in this supply chain, which collectively delivered around 22 million barrels of crude to Israel between October 2023 and June 2026, accounting for 11% of the nation’s total crude imports over that period.
What makes the findings particularly striking is that the vast majority of shipments from both traders passed through Ceyhan, a major Turkish Mediterranean port, despite Turkey’s official embargo on Israeli-bound oil trade imposed in May 2024. Researchers also confirmed that two Heritage subsidiaries, classified as shipping servicing firms, are formally registered in Turkey’s national trade registry. While major Western oil giants including BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell have already faced widespread public backlash and scrutiny for their roles in supplying energy to Israel during the conflict, the activity of smaller, opaque trading networks in this supply chain has largely flown under the radar until now.
The research team built its findings on trade and shipping data from analytics platform Kpler, cross-referenced with additional data from the London Stock Exchange Group and verified via satellite imagery confirming vessel arrivals at Israel’s Ashkelon port. Both Vitol and Heritage operate as dual charterers and traders, meaning they take full ownership of the crude they ship to Israel. Of more than 250 tracked shipments carrying over 200 million barrels of crude from 19 source countries to Israel, the two firms ranked among the largest charterers for Israeli-bound cargo.
In response to the report’s findings, a Vitol spokesperson stated that the company conducts all its business activities in full compliance with applicable local and international laws. When Middle East Eye reached out to Heritage Petroleum for comment, no response was received prior to publication.
Turkey’s foreign ministry has pushed back against suggestions that it is failing to enforce its own embargo, noting that all crude moving through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which carries Caspian Sea crude from Azerbaijan to Ceyhan, is required to adhere to Turkey’s ban on trade with Israel. “No vessel loading from Ceyhan is authorised or executed with Israel designated as the delivery destination,” a ministry source told Middle East Eye. The source explained that once tankers leave the Ceyhan terminal, cargo ownership can transfer to third-party buyers while in transit, opening a loophole for changes to the final destination. The ministry also clarified that Turkish state energy firms hold only minority stakes in the BTC pipeline project, and the firm operating Turkey’s section of the pipeline has no commercial authority over the sale or routing of cargo, adding that any sale of Turkish state-owned crude to Israel is “entirely out of the question.”
Vitol, one of the world’s leading independent oil traders with a global footprint including major offices in London, Geneva, and Houston, has a long history of controversy tied to unethical business practices. The company pleaded guilty to grand larceny charges in 2007 for paying $13 million in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein-era Iraqi officials to secure lucrative oil supply contracts. In 2026, it became the first firm to secure U.S. authorization to sell Venezuelan crude after the detention of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. When approached by OCI and SOMO for comment, Vitol denied profiting from war and conflict in Venezuela, Ukraine, Iran, or Iraq, but declined to address its role as a charterer of Israeli-bound crude. Between October 2023 and June 2026 alone, Vitol shipped nearly 14 million barrels of crude to Israel, with its shipment volumes spiking sharply in 2023 after the outbreak of the Gaza conflict.
Far less is known about Heritage Petroleum, which was only founded in December 2023 and sent its first chartered shipment of crude to Israel in November 2024, more than a year into the conflict. Despite its recent creation, it quickly rose to become Israel’s second-largest crude supplier, delivering a total of 8.3 million barrels, all of which departed from Turkish ports after the embargo was implemented. “Heritage has appeared out of nowhere to be a leading charterer of fuel to Israel, and its operations are very opaque,” noted Andy Rowell, contributing editor at OCI. “We still do not know who the board of the company are or who the people with significant control are.”
Beyond the two registered Turkish subsidiaries, researchers found that little public information exists about the firms. Limosa Trading Logistics Inc., one of the two Heritage subsidiaries, took its website offline after SOMO’s strategic litigation lead Lydia de Leeuw reached out for comment, and phone calls went unanswered. The second subsidiary, Shiptech Maritime Ltd., initially provided a statement on behalf of both itself and Heritage, claiming the firms were not violating Turkey’s trade ban with Israel. When de Leeuw followed up with additional questions and presented corroborating data from LSEG and port control inspections confirming the shipments, Shiptech declined further comment. A conversation with Shiptech’s Turkish head of operations confirmed that Shiptech and Heritage are the same entity. No responses to Middle East Eye’s requests for comment were received from either subsidiary prior to publication.
The investigation’s findings raise serious questions about how effectively Turkey is enforcing its embargo on Israeli energy trade. While researchers acknowledge that crude oil has legitimate civilian uses in Israel, they stress that the link between imported crude and Israeli military operations is unambiguous. “What we do know is that Israel relies heavily on imported crude oil,” Rowell explained. “In 2024, for example, the country imported 97 percent of its crude oil. The imported oil is refined in Ashdod and Haifa and both refineries have been clear that they are supplying the military. Bazan Group, which owns the Haifa refinery, has been clear that it supplies the Israeli military.”
The report also highlights the enabling role that national governments hold over this ongoing energy flow, and puts forward clear policy recommendations. It calls on major oil-producing countries that supply the crude, including Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Nigeria, to implement formal embargoes on Israeli-bound crude, and urges Turkey to strengthen enforcement against firms exploiting loopholes to facilitate shipments. It also notes that the countries hosting the traders’ headquarters – the United Arab Emirates for Heritage and the United Kingdom for Vitol – hold significant policy tools to restrict and halt these shipments.
Rowell particularly emphasized the implications of the findings for the UK, given new Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband’s pledges to reset the UK’s relations with Israel. “This will be a real test – Vitol has huge operations out of London; will the government take action against them?” he said.
The report also notes that the full scope of the two traders’ roles may be even larger than documented, as roughly half of all Israeli-bound crude shipments analyzed for the investigation did not list a named charterer, leaving open the possibility that additional undisclosed activity by the two firms is unaccounted for.