Russian Socar Plan

Under a new deal, private Russian oil producer Lukoil will lend $1.5 billion to Azeri public oil company Socar and begin supplying Russian crude oil for processing at Socar’s STAR refinery in Turkey, which has the capacity to process 200,000 barrels. of oil per day.

After Russia’s operation against Ukraine, Europe’s oil refineries stopped importing Russian crude oil. With this agreement, Lukoil will find another customer near Russian ports.

Türkiye, which does not impose sanctions on Russia, continues to export Russian oil and natural gas.

“LUKOIL WILL START SUPPLYING 100 THOUSAND BARRELS OF URAL OIL PER DAY”

However, the STAR refinery in Turkey, owned by Socar, stopped importing Russian crude oil this summer due to difficulties arising from international financial restrictions on trade with Russia.

According to data from LSEG’s Eikon, the STAR refinery, which reduced imports of Ural oil earlier this year and completely suspended it in August and September, replaced Russian oil with KEBCO oil from Kazakhstan.

According to Reuters, the STAR refinery, which bought an average of 100,000 barrels of Ural oil per day in 2022, has bought an average of less than 50,000 barrels of Ural oil per day so far this year.

According to sources, Lukoil will begin supplying approximately 100 thousand barrels of Ural oil per day to the STAR refinery from October. This constitutes half of the STAR refinery’s processing capacity.

According to LSEG data, three tankers named Azure Celeste, Ocean Faye and Sea Fidelity, supplied by Lukoil, left Primorsk for Turkey after loading 100,000 tons of Ural oil in late September and early October. One of the sources said the tankers were the first shipments under the new supply agreement.