Russia has long been a significant supplier of refined intermediates and finished products to Europe, just as it has been of crude oil. That changed, however, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 as the European Union (EU) implemented a formal embargo on imports of Russian crude oil in December 2022, followed by refined products in February 2023. In today’s RBN blog, we review the reduction in imports of Russian refined products and intermediates into Europe and the specific replacement sources.
As we described in Part 1 of this series, Russia supplied about 25% of all crude oil and refined products to Europe and accounted for about 38% of EU imports before the embargo. The total volume was about 4.7 MMb/d, of which crude oil comprised more than 3 MMb/d. Total refined products supplied by Russia to Europe were around 1.5-1.6 MMb/d before February 2023, when the volume slumped to less than 500 Mb/d (multicolored bar to far right in Figure 1).
The EU ban on Russian refined products took effect on February 5, 2023, leading to significant reductions in diesel/gasoil, fuel oil/refinery feedstocks, and naphtha/gasoline. Diesel and gasoil (dark-green bar segments) contributed about one-half of Russian refined products imported by the EU with just under 800 Mb/d in 2021 and 2022, declining to 264 Mb/d in February-March 2023 (time period represents the 40 days after the embargo came into effect). Fuel oil and refinery feedstocks (yellow segments) had been trending in the 400-500 Mb/d range before falling to 153 Mb/d. Finally, naphtha and gasoline (blue segments) declined from 310 Mb/d to 65 Mb/d.
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