Turkey’s largest oil refiner and sole virgin base oil producer, Tupras, is no longer buying Russian crude feedstock after tightened sanctions imposed earlier this year.
The company did not say whether it was stopping imports of refined products, according to a report by Reuters.
Turkey did not come on board with sanctions imposed against Russia by the G7+ group of nations package of sanctions – measures that have applied pressure on the Kremlin’s defense budget.
Tupras became a significant buyer of Russian crude after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russian oil represented 65% of Turkey’s total oil imports from January through November 2024, according to data from Turkey’s energy regulator, the Energy Market Regulatory Authority.
According to shipping data provider Kpler, imports from Russia to Tupras alone doubled from 2021 to 170,000 barrels per day in 2022. In 2024, Tupras imported 225,000 barrels per day of Russian Ural crude, up from 178,000 bpd in 2023.
Tupras’s fuels and oil products refinery in Izmir has capacity to produce 400,000 metric tons per year of API Group I base oils.