Despite the challenging geopolitical landscape, Turkey’s energy strategy remains resilient, with no immediate plans to pivot away from Russian crudes.
US and European sanctions on Russian oil and gas are really starting to bite. The media, however, is presenting a much rosier picture than the facts on the ground show. As one of the leading outlets for Russian crude, Turkey, a NATO member, currently in discussion on membership of the EU, shows a much darker picture when talking about its perceived pivot away from Moscow’s crude than facts on the ground support. As Turkey sits at the hinge of three pressure systems —G7/EU sanctions that keep tightening, Russian discounts that remain attractive to complex refineries, and Ankara’s own energy-security calculus —further analysis is needed. As stated by the US and EU, supported by a long list of analyses, 2025 has brought stricter measures, especially after the EU and UK lowered the price cap to $47.60 per barrel (September 3), while expanding action against the “shadow fleet”. Brussels showed some balls when it put additional packages with stronger anti-circumvention tools into action. Still, facts at present show that none of these developments has compelled Turkey, which is non-aligned with the G7 cap, to skip Russian crude. However, the new measures have only raised compliance costs for shippers, traders, insurers, and banks around Turkish refiners.
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Since January 2025, the situation has been dynamic and complex. In January, following a push from US sanctions, Turkey’s largest refiner, Tüpra?, temporarily halted purchases of Russian Urals. However, the market dynamics shifted two months later, leading to a dramatic change as the Turkish refiner resumed spot buying, indicating that the market viewed the sanctions shocks as transitory, not terminal.
Kpler data now indicates that Turkey imported around 669,000 bpd of crude in Jan–Oct 2025. Of the latter, around 47% (317,000 bpd) was Russian. Even though Russian volumes are slightly down from the Jan–Oct 2024 period (333,000 bpd), the total market share of Russian crude in Turkey remains substantial. The current situation is clearly less than last year’s peak but still close to historic highs in structural terms. The latter clearly means not an exit from Russian crude, just a “diversification” approach (with more non-Russian grades appearing in the slate). Analysis shows that it is a rebalancing under tighter enforcement, not a break-up.
Turkey’s strategic balancing act is a fascinating diplomatic maneuver. The country’s two main refinery realities, the suitability of Urals-like barrels for Turkish kit and economics, and the potential for diversification at the refinery gate, demonstrate how product channels can keep Russian molecules in Turkey’s energy equation even as the crude mix “diversifies.”
At the same time, there is a geography-of-trade wrinkle. Reports and investigations have shown that Turkey’s terminals (especially Dörtyol) are acting as staging points in complex supply chains. They can blend, relabel, or transship Russian-origin barrels and products onward, such as into Europe’s refined fuel system. Turkish parties mostly deny the latter; however, the very existence of such hubs clearly shows how easily Russian flows adapt to rule changes. At present, it is clear that enforcement relies on vessel- and entity-level listings, not only commodity bans, as shown by the EU’s newer packages (targeting anti-circumvention and ship blacklistings).
While 2024 clearly showed a significant increase in Russian crude imports—10.9m tons to around 16.7m tons—pushed by SOCAR’s STAR, 2025 is more like sanctions “frictionalization”. Even with higher legal/financial friction, episodic pauses, and substitution at the margin, the Russian share is still vast and strong. Moscow’s impact is clearly based on compelling economics, and Turkey is not a cap party. At present, Russia still supplies almost half of Turkey’s crude intake.
Tightening sanctions have changed the risk premium, not Turkey’s strategic position. Turkey will continue to arbitrage between compliance risks and refinery margins, given that it is outside the cap coalition and Russian barrels are at a high discount. There are steeper discounts at present due to the EU/UK decision to lower the cap to $47.60. The latter also decreases the Kremlin’s revenues at the margin. However, the impact on Turkey is less than expected, as everything is filtered through non-aligned shipping, insurance, and statecraft in Ankara.
Assessments should also be redirected to the product side of all. Russian diesel (and other products) is Turkey’s pressure valve, even amid episodic ebbs in Russian volumes. The only way to force Turkey to consider diversification is to sanction third-country product flows more aggressively or expand vessel lists. At present, product arbitrage is muting diversification pulls. In the coming months, the EU’s recent packages, adding more shadow-fleet listings and anti-circumvention language with real enforcement, could push Turkey to consider other options.
It’s crucial to adopt a comprehensive approach when evaluating the impact of sanctions on Turkish oil imports. Simply focusing on periodic halts in Russian volumes to Turkey is not sufficient. The effects of sanctions only diminish when banks, P&I arrangements, and traders reprice the situation. Turkish refiners will only consider changing their strategies when costs rise, and they may even explore other crudes, such as Iraqi or Kazakh, to replace Urals.
The market should be watching very closely in the coming months the spread between capped Urals and Iraqi/Kazakh alternatives into the Mediterranean; the EU and US enforcement tempo on specific tankers and facilitators tied to Turkey-routed flows; and whether Ankara signals policy shifts under broader U.S.–Turkey bargaining. At the same time, the effects of the EU’s late-2025/2026 packages, which entail anti-circumvention measures and tighten LNG/shipping rules, could also have an impact, as they carry financing implications.
The bottom line at present is that the narrative of “Turkey is diversifying away from Russian crude” is directionally true on the margins since autumn 2025, but the structural picture is stubborn. Russian crudes still have an outsized share of Turkey’s slate. You could even argue they are at historical highs. There will be no fundamental changes in Turkey’s appetite unless sanctions escalate from price-cap calibration to sustained service-and-finance denial. If not, Ankara will keep walking both roads, publicly stating that it is trimming exposure, while, under the surface, discounted Russian molecules are being preserved.
By Cyril Widdershoven for Oilprice.com
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