Russia is banning gasoline producers from exporting the fuel until July 31, expanding the current ban that applied only to non-producers, as the Middle East war and the Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian export terminals have upended the global and domestic markets.
The Russian government on Thursday said it had expanded the ban on gasoline exports to producers of the fuel, Russian news agency Interfax reported.
Russia has had a ban on gasoline exports by non-producers, but now the measure is expanding to gasoline producers.
The new ban exempts only Russian gasoline shipments under bilateral agreements, the government said. Mongolia is one such market where gasoline exports under inter-government agreements would be allowed.
“The decision was made to maintain a stable situation on the domestic fuel market during the period of high seasonal demand and agricultural field work, as well as in light of the growth of world oil prices due to the geopolitical situation in the Middle East,” the government said in a press release cited by Interfax.
The Russian Energy Ministry insisted on Thursday that Russia’s oil industry is fully prepared for coming seasonal rise in fuel demand.
“Currently, the domestic market has sufficient reserves of light petroleum products,” the ministry said in remarks to the TASS news agency.
“There have been no disruptions in regional supply, and the industry is fully prepared for the period of seasonal growth in demand,” it added.
Meanwhile, Russia cannot take full advantage of the spike in oil prices and its now unsanctioned oil that is wanted again in its key market India, as loading operations at the vital Russian oil export loading ports on the Baltic Sea have been disrupted by Ukrainian drone strikes.
Ukraine intensified attacks on Russia’s Baltic Sea ports last week, crippling loading operations and forcing suspension of activities. Reuters calculations suggest that as much as 40% of Russia’s oil export capacity was offline last week, factoring in port outages, pipeline issues, and tanker-related disruptions.
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