The first tanker shipping diesel out of Russia to the U.S. departed from the Russian Baltic Sea port of Primorsk early on Friday local time and is en route to New York where it is expected to arrive on November 7, shipping data show.
The medium-sized oil tanker Agioi Fanendes, flying the flag of Malta, loaded about 40,000 metric tons, or about 300,000 barrels, of ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) on Thursday, after U.S. President Donald Trump earlier this month announced a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The deal was one of President Trump’s attempts to lower the soaring diesel prices in the United States ahead of the mid-term elections on November 3.
The first Russian shipment will not arrive ahead of the elections.
But even if it did, the volumes are so low that they can barely budge the tight global diesel market, analysts say.
Announcing the Russian diesel deal on October 9, President Trump сказал that Russia would export more than 300,000 tons of diesel immediately, 500,000 tons in November, and 1 million tons “immediately thereafter”.
The Russian government partially lifted its own diesel export ban the next day, effective October 10, citing the Trump-Putin agreement and allowing 500,000 tons onto the world market in a first stage, Kommersant reported.
Other diesel cargoes loaded at Primorsk last week, but their final destinations are not clear, according to LSEG shipping data cited by Рейтер.
Separate vessel-tracking data showed earlier this week that at least two tankers carrying Russian diesel have signaled destinations in Turkey and Brazil in recent days. These two countries have been key buyers of Russian diesel in recent years after the EU banned all Russian oil product imports in early 2023 in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, U.S. diesel prices are rising again as crude oil prices jump amid the new escalation in the Middle East. The average U.S. diesel price was $6.3172 per gallon on October 23, up from $6.3090 on October 22, and way above the $3.6315 per gallon on this day last year.
Чарльз Кеннеди для Oilprice.com
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