Bloomberg: Russian diesel likely continues to find its way to the UK via Antwerp

Russian diesel is likely to still be entering the UK, weeks after direct deliveries were halted.

So far, there has been no shipment of diesel fuel from a Russian port directly to the UK this month and there was only one in June, according to tanker tracking data from Vortexa compiled by Bloomberg. That’s a big change from the more than 160,000 barrels taken each day, on average, in February.

But despite the dip in direct flows, total UK fuel arrivals from all locations fell by less than half that amount. This is because more is coming from elsewhere – notably from Belgium.

Deliveries from the country – specifically from Antwerp – have increased since March, reaching in June the highest monthly figure recorded in data going back to early 2016.

March was the month the British government said it would phase out imports from Russia by the end of the year in response to the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

At the same time that Belgium was sending more diesel fuel to the UK, it was also importing more from Russia.

It is “quite likely, if not likely, that the UK is still importing Russian diesel, albeit blended from Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp,” Facts Global Energy said in a note. Definitive proof that Russian fuel is still finding its way to British shores via Belgium is difficult.

Almost all of those barrels are transported in and out of Antwerp, a major oil trading hub that is home to two major refineries and large amounts of storage where the fuel can be pumped in and out of tanks and even mixed together. This makes it extremely difficult to track where individual molecules end up.

A person involved in the diesel market said Russian product was entering the UK via Belgium. Four more had either heard of Russian product arriving in the country via Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp, or believed that such a shipment could have occurred. Several others were more cautious or less certain.

Once the liquid cargo is pumped, it is untraceable, said Krien van Beek, broker at Odin-RVB Tank Storage BV, a global storage brokerage.

The UK’s total ban on diesel imports from Russia – even directly – does not come into force until the end of this year. There is also no blanket ban on imports into the European Union at the moment.

Not all Russian diesel is exported through the country’s ports. Some parts not included in the above are shipped from facilities in neighboring countries.