Limited impact of the Ukrainian conflict on Dutch oil consumption

Limited impact of the Ukrainian conflict on Dutch oil consumption

Various sanctions have been imposed on imports of Russian oil products, which so far have had no impact on refinery production and product sales by Dutch oil trading and storage companies. This concerns the sanctions that the EU imposed on crude oil imports from 5 December 2022 and from 5 February 2023 on diesel imports from Russia.

Refineries replace Russian oil with purchases from other countries

Despite sanctions, the Netherlands imports almost the same amount of crude oil and condensate in 2022 as in 2021. The country of origin of the oil does change during 2022. For example, in December 2022 compared to the previous six months, more than 900 million kilos of crude oil purchased from Saudi Arabia, 700 million KG from Iraq and almost 500 million KG from Kazakhstan. Overall, this largely compensates for Russia’s loss of monthly imports of approx 2 800 million kilograms. The Netherlands exports an average of just over 100,000 per month 8 000 million kilograms of crude oil and condensate. Half of it is directly exported to other countries such as Germany and Belgium. The other half is consumed by refineries in the Netherlands.