Newsbase - Downstream Middle East & Africa News Monitor Subscribe to download Archive

DMEA: Russian fuel deliveries to Middle East remain high in September

Russia continued to deliver higher than usual volumes of petroleum products to buyers in the Middle East in September, even though deliveries dropped month on month, according to Vortexa data cited by Argus Media.

On October 19, Argus Media explained that Russian sellers had been sending about 250,000-450,000 tonnes per month of refined fuel to the Middle East prior to the outbreak of war in Ukraine in late February. But since the start of the conflict, it said, Russian deliveries to the region have gone up, as sellers have needed to find outlets for their inventory.

Russian petroleum product shipments to the Middle East amounted to 1.06mn tonnes in September, the Vortexa data showed. This was 24.3% down from the record monthly high of 1.4mn tonnes posted in August but still considerably above the figures usually posted for the same month in previous years.

The top two destinations for Russian petroleum products were the UAE and Saudi Arabia, which took delivery of 574,000 tonnes and 412,000 tonnes respectively.