{"id":957257,"date":"2026-05-13T15:00:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T15:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/957257\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T15:00:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T15:00:20","slug":"eu-buyers-maintain-appetite-for-russian-origin-fuel-despite-sanctions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/957257\/","title":{"rendered":"EU buyers maintain appetite for Russian-origin fuel despite sanctions"},"content":{"rendered":"

EU member states have continued\u00a0purchasing\u00a0fuel from refineries believed to use Russian-origin crude, with researchers\u00a0identifying\u00a0eight such transactions in April, despite the bloc\u2019s sanctions crackdown.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since January this year, EU fuel importers have\u00a0been required\u00a0to show cargoes were\u00a0not produced using Russian crude<\/strong><\/a>, even when\u00a0purchased\u00a0from non-sanctioned countries or refineries \u2013 part of wider efforts to starve Russia of oil export revenue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, Cyprus received four shipments last month from potentially high-risk refiners, while Italy, the Netherlands,\u00a0Romania\u00a0and Spain received one each, according to a report published by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and data seen by\u00a0GTR<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Seven of the eight shipments originated from Turkish refineries, including two from Star Refinery and one from\u00a0T\u00fcpra\u015f\u00a0\u0130zmit, which CREA said use Russian crude oil for up to 64% and 74% of their\u00a0feedstock\u00a0respectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One cargo was\u00a0purchased\u00a0from Georgia\u2019s\u00a0Kulevi\u00a0refinery, which the research organisation said is entirely reliant on Russian crude. The remaining four cargoes were imported from the\u00a0T\u00fcpra\u015f\u00a0\u0130zmir refinery on\u00a0Turkey\u2019s\u00a0west coast.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The report said all four refineries should be considered \u201chigh risk according to EU guidance\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEnforcement agencies in member states must investigate shipments of oil products imported from refineries that run on Russian crude to prevent Russian oil molecules from entering the bloc, which would violate the\u00a0EU\u2019s\u00a0recently implemented ban,\u201d it said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of the eight shipments, which included fuel oil,\u00a0diesel\u00a0and jet fuel cargoes, five were insured by P&I clubs based in the UK, data showed. None were carried aboard sanctioned vessels or transported under a false flag.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The report follows warnings from CREA last month that\u00a014 cargoes of potentially high-risk fuel<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0arrived at EU ports in March. Of those, 10 were from\u00a0T\u00fcpra\u015f\u00a0\u0130zmit, Star and\u00a0Kulevi, with the remaining four from India\u2019s Jamnagar Refinery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The research organisation also found Russia\u2019s oil and gas export revenue has\u00a0remained\u00a0elevated since the conflict in the Middle East, which has\u00a0choked off supply<\/strong>\u00a0and triggered unpredictable price fluctuations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Overall revenues rose 4% in April,\u00a0it said,\u00a0equivalent to \u20ac733mn per day\u00a0and\u00a0the highest such figure since 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Crude oil revenues dropped 9% from March\u2019s \u201canomalous high\u201d, but\u00a0were still 68%\u00a0higher\u00a0than in February and\u00a0up\u00a044%\u00a0year-on-year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The report attributed the\u00a0April\u00a0drop to Ukrainian drone strikes on export infrastructure, which resulted in seaborne export volumes dipping by\u00a0nearly a\u00a0quarter.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, pipeline crude exports increased by more than a third from March due to the resumption of flows to Hungary and Slovakia via the Druzhba pipeline, which are exempt from EU sanctions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s LNG export revenue also grew\u00a0by 25% to\u00a0\u20ac58mn per day\u00a0in April,\u00a0propelled by a spike in imports to China and Japan, CREA found.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EU member states have continued\u00a0purchasing\u00a0fuel from refineries believed to use Russian-origin crude, with researchers\u00a0identifying\u00a0eight such transactions in April,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":957258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[267265,19633,2000,299,5187,267266],"class_list":["post-957257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-centre-for-research-on-energy-and-clean-air-crea","tag-compliance","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-risk-and-insurance"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116567869227875938","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=957257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/957258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=957257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=957257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=957257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}