Nation with no refinery is shipping fuel to biggest oil exporter

by Bloomberg Jun 16, 2022

Estonia, a country without a single oil refinery to its name, has ramped up its supplies of fuel oil to Saudi Arabia.

The Baltic nation will deliver more of power-generation and shipping fuel to the world’s largest crude exporter in June than it did in any month over the past few years.

In reality, the cargoes most likely originated in Russia, according to Iman Nasseri, the managing director for the Middle East at consulting firm FGE. The country has received fuel oil by rail from Russia, he said.

Estonia imported 8 million barrels of fuel oil in the first five months of 2022, of which most came from Russia and got reexported again, according to Nasseri.

Fuel imports from Russia are permissible under EU law until December, said Marie Allikmaa, head of international economics at the Estonian Ministry of Economy. The ministry wasn’t able to comment on the shipments to Saudi Arabia, or whether they would have originated in Russia.

Saudi Arabia will have imported three cargoes of Estonian fuel oil in May and June, compared with only one in each of the preceding two years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from shipping analytics firm Vortexa Ltd., and further checked with port information.

Saudi Arabia’s Aramco Trading Company and the Ministry of Energy didn’t respond to a Bloomberg News request for comment.

Russia needs to identify new markets for its oil and fuel after European buyers stepped back following the invasion of Ukraine.

For Saudi Arabia, the fuel might be useful for power generation, even freeing up crude oil for export markets.

The shipments are small in the context of the global oil market, but underscore the close ties between Riyadh and Moscow. The two nations have led the OPEC+ alliance of oil producing states in keeping crude supply off the global market.

US President Joe Biden will visit Saudi Arabia next month against a backdrop of spiraling oil and fuel prices that are fanning inflationary pressures domestically and in the global economy.