Importing fuel into Russia was permitted starting July 1 to prevent shortages in the market during the high-demand holiday season. The volumes of Russian oil refining have been obliged to decrease due to unplanned shutdowns for repairs at oil refineries (ORFs) following drone attacks.
This primarily affected the supply of gasoline in the domestic market, where production was only 10-15% higher than consumption in Russia. Gasoline exports have been banned since April 2026, but by the end of summer, additional volumes were needed due to the seasonal surge in demand.
The main influx of fuel imports came from Belarusian ORFs (212 thousand tons in July), but some shipments were also made from India and Morocco. According to Reuters, by the end of July, about 140 thousand tons of gasoline arrived in Murmansk. Additionally, information from S&P Global Commodities at Sea indicates that approximately 23 thousand tons of gasoline from Turkey is currently en route to Russia. Moreover, these shipments are not headed to the nearest Russian port of Novorossiysk but to Baltic ports, which will obviously increase transportation costs.
Gasoline from India is originally significantly more expensive than Russian gasoline.
However, the fuel situation in some regions of the Russian Federation remains tense. Some gas stations are closed, and long queues often form at those that are operational. The main issue with gasoline imported from afar, delivered by sea, is its price. Since imported gasoline is initially more expensive than Russian gasoline, a dampening mechanism is applied to such shipments. This is a subsidy from the budget that compensates importers for part of the difference between the indicative wholesale prices (set by the government for the year) in Russia and the cost of fuel on international markets. Delivery costs are also considered. Yet, even with this compensation, Indian or Moroccan gasoline (AI-92) traded on the St. Petersburg Exchange at a price of 105 thousand rubles per ton, which is 39% higher than the exchange quotes for AI-92 (75,530 rubles per ton).
This is not the price that buyers would like to see, nor is it the price at which gasoline can later be sold at gas stations, noted Dmitry Gusev, Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Association "Reliable Partner" and a member of the Expert Council of the "Gas Stations of Russia" competition, in a conversation with "RG". Considering delivery, the price of such gasoline at gas stations will be around 100 rubles or higher. However, without the dampening mechanism, it would be priced at 150 or 160 rubles per liter, the expert points out.
According to Sergey Tereshkin, General Director of Open Oil Market, prices for Indian fuel will significantly exceed the prices of supplies from Russian ORFs, even when accounting for subsidies under the import dampening mechanism. Subsidies will be paid with a certain lag, similar to payments under the dampening mechanism for Russian ORFs. Due to the necessity of "recovering" high logistical costs, fuel importers will offer substantial discounts to end buyers.
As Sergey Frolov, Managing Partner of NEFT Research, suggests, there is also the factor of rising logistics costs due to increasing freight rates and overall risks associated with supplies to Russia. Besides maritime delivery, the fuel needs to be distributed across Russia, which also incurs additional costs. This explains the high price of gasoline on the exchange.
Gusev emphasizes that the situation regarding imported marine fuel supplies should normalize. People are quite conservative; they are hesitant to buy new. For instance, it is currently unclear how to arrange shipments for lower ecological class gasolines (Euro-2, Euro-3, Euro-4), which are now permitted. It will take a couple of weeks for the situation to stabilize, allowing everyone to understand what actions to take, believes the expert.
Additionally, it can be noted that the demand for gasoline in Russia traditionally drops in the second half of September, which should positively affect fuel availability and prices at gas stations. Moreover, this year, considering the existing difficulties, demand may start to decrease even earlier.
Tereshkin is confident that India will be the primary supplier of gasoline to Russia by sea, as it is also one of the largest consumers of Russian oil. Not coincidentally, the calculation of the import parity for the dampening mechanism for importers is based on the price of fuel in Indian ports, adjusted for the cost of transportation to Russian ports, including insurance premiums and transshipment costs. Indian ORFs are unlikely to export fuel with high sulfur content (lower ecological classes), as they would incur losses not only in the Russian market but also in other markets.
According to Frolov, the volumes of imports from abroad will likely remain at a level that cannot significantly influence gasoline prices in Russia, nor fully compensate for the volumes lost due to ORF shutdowns. Currently, imports cover about 5% of the country's monthly needs.
Source: RG.RU
