Turkey sharply reduced its imports of Russia's flagship Urals crude oil in November, shipping data from energy consultancy Kpler showed, as Western sanctions on Russian energy suppliers tightened and Turkish refineries shifted to alternative
Turkey sharply reduced its imports of Russia's flagship Urals crude oil in November, shipping data from energy consultancy Kpler showed, as Western sanctions on Russian energy suppliers tightened and Turkish refineries shifted to alternative grades.
Shipments of Urals to Turkey fell by 100,000 barrels per day from October levels, with total imports dropping to around 200,000 bpd last month, data from Kpler and LSEG showed.
Turkey has become one of the largest buyers of Russian crude since 2022 when European buyers stopped purchases, ranking since then as the second biggest buyer after India among seaborne importers of Urals, Russia's main export grade, LSEG data shows.
The decline comes as U.S. sanctions on Russian majors Lukoil and Rosneft have narrowed the pool of suppliers Turkish refiners can deal with.
In addition, the European Union's planned ban on the purchase of fuel produced from Russian oil, set to take effect at the end of January 2026, is prompting Turkish companies to diversify their feedstock.
As Urals shipments fell, Turkey boosted imports of alternative crude grades, including Kazakhstan's CPC Blend and KEBCO and Iraq's Basrah, according to the Kpler data.
CPC Blend, though loaded from Russia's port of Yuzhnaya Ozereyevka, is mostly produced by
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