Turkey increased imports of Russia’s flagship Urals crude in October to 7.41 million barrels (about 1 million metric tons) from 5.15 million in September due to rising demand and the end of refinery maintenance, LSEG data and Reuters calculations showed.

Turkey, one of the major Russian oil offtakers, will buy the highest Urals volume since July this year after the 214,000 barrels per day STAR refinery owned by Azerbaijan’s SOCAR completed major month-long maintenance on Oct. 23.

The STAR refinery has already restarted purchasing Urals for end-October delivery, two traders involved in Russian oil sales to Turkey said.

Refineries of Turkish company Tupras also increased purchases of Russian oil this month due to fewer alternatives available in the Mediterranean, the traders said.

In September, Turkish refineries purchased eight cargoes of Basrah crude, including Light, Heavy and Medium grades, from Iraq, according to LSEG. In October Turkey imported only four cargoes of Basrah Heavy and Basrah Medium, the data shows.

Turkey’s growing interest in Urals comes amid an expected reduction in oil shipments from Russia in November, which could support the grade’s prices, traders said.

Russia’s oil exports from its western ports – Primorsk, Ust-Luga and Novorossiisk – will decline to 1.95 million barrels per day (about 8 million tons) in November from 2.25 million barrels per day in October amid the end of planned refinery maintenance.

India is also expected to increase demand for Russian oil with delivery in November and December, traders said. Last week, BPCL, a large buyer of Russian oil, said it had ended maintenance on its Kochi refinery with a capacity of 6 million tons per year.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Reuters; Editing by David Holmes)