More evidence that Turkey simply relabels Russian oil products and re-exports them to Europe as Turkish emerges from a new study by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and the Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD).
“Turkey, the world’s largest buyer of Russian refined oil products, has emerged as a strategic pitstop for Russian fuel products rerouted to the EU, likely generating hundreds of millions in tax revenues for the Kremlin’s war chest,” said Martin Vladimirov, senior energy analyst at CSD and co-author of the report.
The report reveals that from the point the EU/G7 Russian petroleum products ban took effect on February 5 last year to the end of February this year, the EU has imported €3bn of oil products from three Turkish ports. The trio of ports—Ceyhan, Marmara Ereglisi and Mersin have no refining hubs and in the period analysed imported 86% of their oil products from Russia.
I’m surprised you needed to research that. How else would Turkey magically increase their oil exports that much? I assume people simply didn’t care. They had their symbolic ban and didn’t need to decrease their oil consumption.