A company called Bellatrix Energy is domiciled in Hong Kong. Established in 2020, it claims on its website to "provide the best quality products and services to our customers with our expert staff."
The company was included in the sanction list of the US Treasury. Hong Kong-based Bellatrix Energy Limited (Bellatrix) has sharply increased its share of the trade of Russian oil since the price cap policy was implemented. Since the middle of June 2023 alone, vessels chartered by Bellatrix have made more than 150 port calls in Russia. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Bellatrix has traded tens of millions of tons of crude oil and other products of Russian state-owned oil companies and has received a loan worth hundreds of millions of dollars from a Russian state-owned bank. Bellatrix has also borrowed from Joint Stock Company Russian Regional Development Bank, which OFAC designated on November 2, 2023.
Bellatrix Energy Ltd., a Hong Kong company that was unknown in the oil market before the war. Owned by an Azerbaijani citizen called Bilal Aliyev, according to corporate filings, it bought 151,000 barrels a day in December from several Russian oil companies, the customs data show.