As the newspaper “Kommersant” writes, the first tanker with a batch of 50 thousand tons of gasoline from Turkey to one of Russia’s Baltic Sea ports will arrive by the end of August.
Read more From bird to human: how mosquitoes help spread West Nile fever
The fuel is transported by the tanker “Wendrix”, loaded at the Turkish port of Mersin, which is included in the sanctions lists of the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland.
This is already the fifth gasoline import shipment since July, noted “Kommersant”.
At the beginning of August, the first tanker with gasoline from India was unloaded in Murmansk, sent by the oil refinery “Vadinar” owned by the company “Rosneft”. In addition, Russia purchased gasoline in Morocco, but its true origin is unknown: the country’s only oil refinery was closed in 2015.
In August, Russia will increase fuel imports to 270 thousand tons, sources from the news agency “Reuters” previously said. About a third of this amount will be provided by India, which itself buys Russian oil at discounts. The rest of the shipments consist of petroleum products that were transshipped from ship to ship off the coasts of South Korea and Malaysia.
Dmitry Prokofiev, head of external relations at “NEFT Research”, estimated that currently Russia is able to cover only 65–75% of the country’s gasoline consumption needs. And the country’s oil refining volumes remain at a two-decade low and lag behind the seasonal norm by a third – about 4 million barrels per day.
Read more Body of a 44-year-old man found in an apartment in Kaunas
A new wave of fuel shortages has already affected at least 14 regions across the country, including Moscow, where several-kilometer queues have again formed at gas stations. Meanwhile, major oil companies have introduced fuel sales restrictions.
Official gasoline sales restrictions apply in the Lipetsk, Kaluga, Orenburg, Leningrad, Samara regions, as well as in Transbaikalia.
According to data from the “GdeBenz” platform, on August 16 more than 70% of Russian gas stations had no gasoline or diesel, and their share increased by 13% over the week.
Since the beginning of August, at least five Russian oil refineries have stopped fuel production due to drone strikes from Ukraine.
It seems that in September oil companies will also not be able to eliminate the shortage through their own production. Under an optimistic scenario, fuel production will increase by 10–15%, sources in the industry told the newspaper “Kommersant”. Current import volumes will also not help fill this gap, added D. Prokofiev from “NEFT Research”.
Read more The door is suddenly slammed shut by a famous sports club
