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Chart of the Day: Russia’s Exports of Petroleum Products Declined Significantly  

Summary

Figure (1) above shows Russia’s weekly exports of clean and dirty products. It shows the large decline in recent weeks as the government banned gasoline exports since March 1 and reduced diesel exports, as Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia’s refineries intensified. The decline this year form the peak is about 1 mb/d.

EOA’s Main Takeaway

The large decline is attributed to refinery maintenance on one hand and Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia’s’ oil refineries on the other. It remains to be seen of government curbs on exports of certain products played a role or if they were a cover up for the decline. 

Theoretically, a decline in refinery utilization must free up crude oil for exports or reduce crude production. In its latest report, OPEC stated that Russia crude production declined by only 40 kb/d. Kpler data shows an increase in crude exports by about 50 kb/d in recent weeks. That is much lower than the 1 mb/d decline in product exports. The fact is that every company that reports oil shipping warns that data about Russia and Iran are suspect because of the dark fleet.  The possibility of exports being higher than what we all see is very high. 

To conclude, the Russian government’s curbs on exports of petroleum products reduced exports. Ukraine’s attacks on Russian refineries reduced utilization and might have led to government curbs, and the dark fleet might be exporting more than we see. Data has deteriorated significantly in that last two years, and we should be careful making firm conclusions from the data alone. The conclusion here is that what is available to the market is higher than what is reported. 

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