OREANDA-NEWS  In February, Russia began shipping diesel fuel to Saudi Arabia. Experts suggest that Russian oil products supplied to a country that is already a major exporter of this type of fuel can be processed and re-exported to other countries, bypassing sanctions. This possibility became known to Reuters.

During the month, more than 190 thousand tons of diesel fuel of Russian origin were shipped to the ports of Saudi Arabia. The tanker Srini has loaded 66 thousand tons in the port of Primorsk and is now being unloaded at the terminal of the port of Jeddah (on the eastern coast of the Red Sea). Two more vessels — Apanemo and Zarya — are going to the main oil port of the country Ras-Tannura.

Before the start of the special operation in Ukraine and the subsequent imposition of sanctions, the main buyer of Russian diesel fuel was the European Union. However, supplies in this direction stopped on February 5, when the embargo on the purchase of petroleum products from Russia came into force. By December last year, imports of Russian diesel by European countries fell by about 40 percent — it was replaced by supplies from Saudi Arabia and India.

According to a recent assessment by the Energy Information Administration of the US Department of Energy, after the sanctions came into force in early February, imports of diesel fuel from Russia to Europe by sea decreased from 53 percent to two. Against this background, fuel supplies from Saudi Arabia increased sharply — according to the ministry, in February they increased to 202 thousand barrels per day against 68 barrels per day in the period from October 2021 to September 2022.