Niels Troost

Niels Troost (born November 27, 1969, in Switzerland) is a Dutch businessman and the most prominent trader of Russian oil to have been slapped by Western sanctions since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He is the founder of two oil traders: Swiss-based Paramount Energy & Commodities SA; and Dubai-based Paramount Energy & Commodities DMCC. In November 2023, the UK government issued sanctions against a Dubai-based subsidiary of Paramount and then two months later, the UK also sanctioned Troost himself and his Geneva-based company. The reason for the sanctions against Niels Troost and his business assets is the unfettered Russian oil trade that routinely priced above the G7 cap while using Western-based insurance services which violates restrictions imposed by Western powers in an attempt to limit Moscow’s oil revenues.

According to Swiss investigative journalism outlet Public Eye, Paramount is reported to have ties to a prominent Russian oligarch, Gunvor founder Gennady Timchenko, who is now subject to Swiss, European and American sanctions.

Education
Niels Troost has an education in economics, international business and marketing from Hogere Economische School in Amsterdam. He also attended the College of Petroleum and Energy Studies in Oxford. In the UK, Niels Troost underwent a course in Creative International Trading in Crude Oil and Petroleum Products.

Business
In 2017, Troost established the Switzerland-based company Paramount Energy & Commodities SA. With headquarters in Geneva, the company trades, supplies, and distributes raw materials, including crude oil and petroleum derivatives, storage, and transport. Until being sanctioned by the UK, Paramount SA was a leading company in trading Russian oil and played a significant role in sustaining the trade of Russia`s energy resources since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Troost`s Paramount SA was the top buyer of ESPO Blend crude oil at the port of Kozmino, near Vladivostok. The company used to have access to terminals in Russia, Turkey, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, China and finances small producers in Russia.

In 2020, Neils Troost founded a near-identical company in Dubai, Paramount Energy and Commodities DMCC. In the press, the Dubai entity has been described as an ‘office’ of the Swiss entity. In 2022, after Western nations announced sanctions on Russian oil due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Troost moved his commercial dealings to Paramount DMCC in the United Arab Emirates, where there are no restrictions towards Russia.

In late 2023, Great Britain expanded its sanction policies to include an additional 29 individuals and companies, including the energy trading firm Paramount Energy & Commodities DMCC. These measures are continuously enforced by Britain's National Crime Agency (NCA).

US Sanctions Scandal
Following sanctions imposed by European countries, the US administration has also applied sanctions against companies that ship Russian oil in violation of Western norms. In response to that, Neils Troost turned to one of the Washington lobbyists Ankit Desai to help prevent potential US sanctions. The revealed contract between Niels Troost and Ankit Desai led to a media scandal, with journalists and analytics assuming that in such a way Troost intended to illegally evade US sanctions and influence US policy.