Investigation exposes Taiwan as the world’s largest importer of Russian naphtha, which is then refined and sold to the West

In the first half of 2025, Taiwan became the world’s leading importer of Russian naphtha, a petroleum distillate used in the production of gasoline and solvents. According to a joint investigation by several organizations — the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, the Environmental Rights Foundation, Ecodefense, and Urgewald — Taiwan then sells refined products made from Russian naphtha to customers from Western countries whose governments support sanctions against Russia’s extractive industry.

While the state-owned companies Taipower and Chinese Petroleum Corporation and the private Taiwan Cement Corporation managed to phase out purchases of Russian energy resources by 2024, the private Formosa Petrochemical Corporation increased its imports from Russia and now buys more than 90 percent of all Russian naphtha shipped to Taiwan. This makes the company the world’s largest known buyer of Russian naphtha.

Ninety-six percent of all Russian naphtha imported to Taiwan is delivered through the port of Mailiao, where Formosa Petrochemical operates three refineries that use Russian naphtha as feedstock. Their output — ortho-xylene, para-xylene, aniline, and other chemicals — is supplied to countries that enforce sanctions on Russian petroleum products. Analysts counted at least 20 ships transporting $150 million worth of Russian naphtha derivatives from Mailiao to Europe throughout the period that the sanctions have been in effect. Formosa Petrochemical also trades with partners in Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

Seventy-two percent of the Russian naphtha supplied to Taiwan comes from Novatek, a company sanctioned by the U.S. for directly financing the war in Ukraine. Eighty-eight percent of seaborne deliveries of Russian naphtha to Taiwan are carried out by tankers registered or insured in countries that support the price cap on Russian oil, which also applies to naphtha (the price of Russian naphtha has not fallen below the cap since December 2023. In addition, 12 percent of Russian naphtha shipments to Taiwan are handled by the “shadow fleet,” posing risks of accidents and oil spills at sea due to the poor condition of these tankers.

According to investigators’ estimates, Russia supplied Taiwan with $1.3 billion worth of naphtha in the first half of 2025 alone. Since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Taiwan’s naphtha imports have brought $1.7 billion in tax revenue to the Russian budget. The total value of Russian mineral resources purchased by Taiwan during the war amounts to $11.2 billion. Meanwhile, Taiwan’s military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine over the same period is estimated at $50 million.