Türkiye’s largest oil refineries are reducing imports of Russian crude oil following the latest US sanctions, Reuters reported.
The STAR Oil Refinery, operated by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) with an annual capacity of 12 million tons and Türkiye Petrol Rafinerileri (TÜPRAŞ), which operates four refineries with a combined annual capacity of 30 million tons, are diversifying their supplies to maintain fuel exports to Europe.
STAR is primarily turning to Iraq and Kazakhstan, the latter supplying so-called KEBCO (Kazakhstan Export Blend Crude Oil), which is equivalent in quality to Russia’s Urals blend. TÜPRAŞ is also increasing purchases of oil grades similar to the Russian Urals, for example, from Iraq, and has already bought cargoes from Brazil and Angola this year. According to Reuters sources, the company is likely to phase out Russian crude imports entirely at one of its plants.
Türkiye – alongside China and India – is one of the largest buyers of Russian-origin crude oil.