Crude Loadings From Russia’s Western Ports Could Fall 6% in March

Oil loadings from Russia’s western ports may decline by 6% to about 1.9mb/d with domestic refinery runs expected to increase prior to the maintenance season according to Reuters sources.

• Oil shipments are expected at 8.2m metric tons or 2.1mb/d in February.
• Refineries will have to boost throughput in March to ensure good fuel availability prior to seasonal works scheduled for April-May.
• Russian oil refineries could boost throughout in the month with the return of facilities from unplanned outages in February which have resulted in lower refinery runs.
• Throughput will however depend on repairs at several Russian refineries after operations were impacted by drone strikes on facilities this year. Some refineries have already resumed operations, but Rosneft's 240kb/d Tuapse refinery is still offline and unlikely to resume in March, according to two Reuters sources.