Russian fuel oil shipments have now reached their highest level since the start of the full-scale war. Overall, Russian oil exports increased in early August, despite Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries.
Bloomberg writes about this.
Total exports of petroleum products rose to 2.31 million barrels per day in the first 10 days of August, the highest since February and 9% higher than the daily average in July.
The agency notes that due to Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries, Russia has seen a sharp drop in oil refining volumes. The fact that fuel oil supplies have increased has helped offset the drop in diesel fuel exports, which have fallen to their lowest level this year — gasoline exports were banned until the end of August to ensure domestic supplies.
At this time, fuel oil supplies increased by 48% compared to the previous month — to 882 000 barrels per day, which is the highest level since February 2022. Supplies to Asia have more than doubled. The number of supplies to Turkey has also increased.
Bloomberg explains that fuel oil usually requires less processing, and the increase in its exports may indicate that secondary processes at refineries are slowing down — these are the stages that follow the primary distillation of oil, when more valuable petroleum products are produced: gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel.
Exports of refinery intermediates such as vacuum gas oil fell to 71 000 barrels per day. Exports of petroleum diluent (petroleum oil, petroleum solvent) increased 12% to the highest level since February. Exports of diesel and gas oil fell 2% from the previous month to about 912 000 barrels per day. More cargoes are heading to Africa and Asia. There have been no exports of gasoline, its blending components and jet fuel so far this month.
In general, the market is focused on seaborne oil shipments as one of the few sources of information about Russian production volumes, and all because official data is classified. Crude oil exports have decreased slightly, but remained within the usual range. So no major changes are visible yet.
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