Russia Looking at Relaxing Standards to Boost Gasoline Supply

The Kremlin is considering easing some of the rigorous fuel environmental standards and bringing lower-quality gasoline onto the market to stave off possible shortages, Reuters said.

• Sources told Reuters that this could boost domestic gasoline supply by 10%, or 0.3m-0.35m mt per month, satisfying rising seasonal demand.
• Ukrainian drone attacks have reduced Russia’s refining capacity by around 14%, affecting domestic production.
• Russia currently has a ban on gasoline exports (excluding to countries in the Eurasian Economic Union) in place until August 31.
• Reuters earlier reported that Russia had requested a 100k mt reserve supply of gasoline from Kazakhstan, although this was denied by the Kazakh Ministry of Energy
• Russia has only allowed high-quality gasoline of at least Euro-5 grade since 2016.
• Total production of gasoline in Russia was around 44m mt in 2023, and 11.1m mt in Q1.