Sanctions are not an obstacle: Russia exports oil products to the EU through Turkey.

Before the full-scale war in Ukraine started, the Turkish Dörtyol oil terminal received Iraqi oil and transferred it to tankers. However, since the first sanctions against Russia began to affect the export of oil and oil products, tankers with Russian cargo began to enter Dörtyol constantly. Subsequently, a significant part of them went on to Europe, even after the EU introduced an embargo, wrote FT.

Turkey has become one of Russia’s main buyers of oil and oil products. In some cases, it sold Russian fuel on the domestic market and exported its more expensive diesel fuel. In other cases, as in the story of Dörtyol, oil products went to Europe without any processing.

From January to November 2023, 10.5 million barrels of oil and petroleum products were delivered to the terminal by sea, of which 9.2 million, or almost 90%, came from Russia. For comparison, 583,870 barrels arrived from Russia in 2021 and 3.7 million in 2022.