Russia refines around 5.5m barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil and gas condensate, the third largest in the world.
[19] From 1 January 2024 the export duty fell to zero as Russia changed the taxation system to add oil to the Mineral Extraction Tax regime.
[20] Various EU countries increased their stocks of refined oil products, especially diesel ahead of the sanction ban.
[23] Russia has increased its storage of diesel in ships, from around 1m to 4m barrels in early April 2023, tying up tankers and indicating problems in finding buyers.
[15] The domestic Russian price of some oil products collapsed in 2022 as supply exceeded demand following falls in exports.
[27] In September 2023 around 33% of oil products shipped from Russia were using shadow tankers which are not owned by or use facilities provided by sanctioning nations, so are not subject to the price cap policy.
The main impacts of the sanctions has been the EU ban on imports, requiring Russia to sell their refined oil to distant markets.
3m barrels of clean refined products to Central and South America, up from 1.3m,[33] with Morocco also increasing purchases of diesel.
[34] Russia has shipped by rail 30,000 tons of diesel and other refined fuels to Iran this year, opening a new trade.
In August the Monitoring Group of the Black Sea Institute of Strategic Studies identified three tankers carrying 563,843 tons, that made direct voyages from Russia to ports of EU countries carrying petroleum products, naming them Athina M who sailed to Antwerp, Janaki who unloaded in Rouen and Hamsi to Piraeus, in breach of sanctions.
[44] In September six further tankers carrying 197,858 tons were identified, Happy Lady and Hamsi to Greece, New Ranger to Spain, Mersey to Belgium, San Sebastian to Croatia and Yash to the US,[45] breaching sanctions by sailing directly from Russia.
OPEC+ having had experienced difficulty understanding changes in production from the 30 large and 80 small refineries in Russia, which process over 5m bpd of crude.
[4] In January the product tanker Marlin Luanda, carrying Russian naphtha, was hit in the Gulf of Aden by a Houthi rebel missile and set on fire.