Saudi Arabia Was July's Top Buyer of Russian Seaborne Fuel Oil
Shipments fell 18% from June to 1.1 million tonnes, while Singapore and Malaysia volumes rose two and a half times.
Saudi Arabia remained the leading destination for seaborne fuel oil and vacuum gasoil leaving Russian ports in July, taking 1.1 million metric tonnes, though the figure was 18 percent below June's total.
The pull is seasonal and structural at once. Summer air-conditioning demand lifts Saudi power generation sharply, and the kingdom has been buying discounted Russian fuel oil to burn in power stations rather than burning its own crude, which is worth more sold than combusted. The arbitrage holds as long as the discount does.
The full European Union embargo on Russian oil products has been in force since February 2023, and Asian and Middle Eastern buyers have absorbed the barrels that used to move west. That redirection is now the settled pattern rather than a disruption, and July's numbers show how the flows redistribute within it.
Russian fuel exports to Singapore and Malaysia, the two major bunkering and storage hubs of the region, rose two and a half times month on month to around 0.47 million tonnes. Both are transshipment points as much as end markets, and cargoes that land there frequently move again.
India took nothing at all last month, after 150,000 tonnes in June. Through 2025 Indian refiners were among the main importers of Russian fuel oil and VGO, using it as a cheaper feedstock alternative to Urals crude. Sanctions imposed last year by the US Treasury on Rosneft and Lukoil pushed those buyers back. Tankers carrying around 230,000 tonnes of dark oil products are currently positioned near the Suez Canal with their final destination still unclear, which is the kind of ambiguity that usually resolves itself only on discharge.
Exports to Turkey fell 21 percent month on month to 150,000 tonnes.
The totals moved against the destinations. Russian seaborne fuel oil and VGO shipments dropped 12 percent month on month in July to 2.4 million tonnes overall, as Ukrainian drone strikes caused refinery outages and cut products output. The constraint in July was supply rather than demand, which is a different problem from the one sanctions enforcement was designed to create.
