Turkey's largest oil refineries are buying more non-Russian oil in response to the latest Western sanctions against Russia. This is reported by UNN with reference to Reuters.
Details
Turkey is a major buyer of Russian crude oil, along with China and India. Turkish refineries are now taking similar measures to Indian ones, indicating the impact of US, European Union and UK efforts to limit sales of Russian oil, which is used to finance the war in Ukraine.
One of Turkey's largest refineries, SOCAR Turkey Aegean Refinery (STAR), owned by Azerbaijan's SOCAR, recently purchased four cargoes of crude oil from Iraq, Kazakhstan and other non-Russian producers for December delivery, sources said.
This amounts to 77,000 to 129,000 barrels per day (bpd) of non-Russian supplies depending on cargo size, according to Reuters calculations, and means SOCAR will use less Russian crude.
According to Kpler data, Russian crude oil accounted for virtually all of STAR refinery's crude oil consumption in October and September, about 210,000 bpd.
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One of the four cargoes is a batch of Kazakh KEBCO, two sources said, which is of the same quality as Russian Urals oil but comes from Kazakhstan. SOCAR's STAR refinery imported only one other cargo of the Kazakh grade this year, and none in 2024.
Another major Turkish refinery, Tupras, opens a new tab, is increasing purchases of non-Russian grades similar in quality to Russian Urals oil, such as Iraqi grades, two sources said, without providing further details.
The steps taken by Turkish refineries to increase purchases of non-Russian crude oil due to the latest sanctions have not been previously reported.
Tupras, which owns two major refineries in Turkey, is also likely to soon completely abandon Russian crude oil imports at one of these refineries to be able to maintain fuel exports to Europe without violating future EU sanctions, two sources said. The company will continue to process Russian crude oil at another refinery, they said.
Tupras has already diversified its crude oil supplies this year, buying its first cargo from Brazil, and is currently awaiting its second cargo of Angolan crude oil - a cargo from Mostarda, which is due to arrive in early November.
According to Kpler, Turkey will receive 141,000 barrels of Iraqi crude oil in November, up from 99,000 bpd in October, and compared to approximately 80,000 bpd on average this year. December data is not yet available.
According to Kpler, Turkey imported about 669,000 bpd of crude oil in January-October, of which 317,000 bpd, or 47%, was Russian.
For comparison, in the same period last year, crude oil imports amounted to 580,000 bpd, of which 333,000 bpd was from Russia.
Addition
The volume of Russian seaborne oil supplies decreased from the highest level in almost two and a half years, with a decrease in supplies from the Baltic last week, but this drop may be due more to weather than recent US sanctions.