By Bosphorus News Energy Desk
Russia's share of Türkiye's diesel imports fell to about 20 percent in August, according to Kpler, after Russian supply accounted for 85 percent of the market in 2025 in Turkish regulatory data.
The switch came as traffic through the Strait of Hormuz fell far below recent levels, constraining another major source of diesel and driving refined-product prices sharply higher. Kpler data cited by Reuters put Russian diesel deliveries to Türkiye at about 80,000 barrels per day in August, down from more than 200,000 bpd earlier in the year.
Russia Dominated Türkiye's Diesel Supply
Russia supplied 85 percent of Türkiye's diesel imports in 2025, equivalent to about 281,000 barrels per day, according to Türkiye's energy regulator.
A separate dataset from the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE), covering trade between January 2025 and June 2026, put Russia's share of Türkiye's diesel and gasoil imports at 87 percent, the highest among the markets examined. Tunisia followed at 76 percent and Brazil at 63 percent.
Türkiye's official petroleum statistics are structured differently. The Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK) publishes monthly diesel import volumes, while its country tables combine crude oil and refined petroleum products. They therefore do not provide a directly comparable country-by-country origin breakdown for diesel alone.
The broader payment data also show how heavily Türkiye's Russian energy purchases were weighted toward petroleum products. The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) calculated that Türkiye bought €2.3 billion of Russian hydrocarbons in June, making it the third-largest buyer that month.
Oil products accounted for €1.4 billion of the total, followed by pipeline gas at €523 million, crude oil at €196 million and coal at €165 million. CREA said diesel represented about half of Türkiye's Russian petroleum-product imports.
Russian Flows Fell as Export Restrictions Tightened
Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries reduced the volumes available for export during the summer.
KSE recorded Russian diesel and gasoil exports falling from roughly 900,000 to 1 million barrels per day to about 580,000 bpd in June.
Russia restricted exports of diesel, marine fuel and gasoil and later extended the ban for producers through Sept. 30, citing the need to stabilize its domestic fuel market.
Turkish purchases fell with the supply. Kpler data cited by Reuters put Russian diesel deliveries at about 100,000 bpd in July and 80,000 bpd in August after volumes had remained above 200,000 bpd during earlier months of 2026.
India supplied more than 120,000 bpd of diesel to Türkiye in August, while shipments from the United States reached about 90,000 bpd. Both were monthly records in Kpler data going back to 2017.
Sparta Commodities analyst Abhishek Kumar said Türkiye was having to "scramble for barrels from the non-Russian pool."
EPDK's June supplier table combines crude and refined products, leaving Russia first overall at 1.52 million tonnes and the United States second at 570,677 tonnes. Customs datasets that isolate crude alone can produce a different ranking, so the two series are not directly comparable.
Hormuz Tightens the Replacement Market
Türkiye's shift away from Russian diesel coincided with severe disruption around the Strait of Hormuz.
Before the conflict, Gulf producers shipped roughly 900,000 barrels per day of diesel through the strait, equivalent to about 10 percent of global seaborne diesel supply, according to Vortexa data cited by Reuters.
Shipping has continued, but at sharply reduced levels. Preliminary data showed only four commodity vessels crossing Hormuz on Thursday against a 10-day average of about 15.
Refined-product prices reacted more strongly than crude. The US diesel crack spread, a measure of refining profitability, reached a record intraday $108.02 per barrel last week. US distillate inventories were at their lowest level for that point in August since 1982.
Brent crude settled at $96.28 a barrel on Friday, up 0.8 percent on the day and 7.6 percent over the week.
Türkiye is replacing Russian diesel in a market where alternative barrels are harder to secure and substantially more expensive.
Official Data Show Diesel Imports Down 24.3%
Türkiye's diesel imports fell to 913,254 tonnes in June, down 24.3 percent from a year earlier, according to EPDK.
Total crude oil and petroleum-product imports declined 12.9 percent to 4.02 million tonnes. Domestic refineries produced about 1.47 million tonnes of diesel during the month, up 4.89 percent year on year.
Lower imports and higher domestic production reduce the volume Türkiye needs to buy abroad. They do not remove exposure to international diesel prices while replacement cargoes are being purchased into an unusually tight market.
New Economic Programme Meets a Different Energy Market
Türkiye is unveiling its 2027-2029 Medium-Term Programme on Sunday, with Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz presenting the new three-year economic roadmap at the Presidential Complex.
The presentation was under way as this article was finalized. The comparison below therefore refers to the outgoing 2026-2028 programme rather than assumptions in the new document.
The outgoing programme assumes Brent crude at $65.1 a barrel for 2027 and an energy import bill of $62.5 billion.
Bosphorus News previously examined the widening gap between those assumptions and the oil market in its analysis of Türkiye's 2027 economic plan.
Friday's $96.28 Brent settlement is a daily market price rather than an annual average, so it cannot be compared directly with a full-year assumption. It does show how far current market conditions have moved from the baseline used in the outgoing programme.
Türkiye's July energy import bill reached $5.83 billion, up 13.1 percent from a year earlier, according to Turkish Statistical Institute data.
The foreign trade deficit reached $60.5 billion in the January-July period. The annualised current-account deficit stood at $38.9 billion in June.
Russia's export restrictions run through Sept. 30. Until then, Türkiye is buying replacement diesel in a market where its former Russian supply has contracted and its Gulf alternative is moving through a heavily disrupted Strait of Hormuz.
Sources: Türkiye's Energy Market Regulatory Authority, Turkish Statistical Institute, Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye, Presidency of Strategy and Budget, Kyiv School of Economics Russian Oil Tracker, Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, Reuters, Kpler and Vortexa data cited by Reuters, Bosphorus News review and reporting.