Donald Trump’s deal with the Kremlin to supply diesel to the global market is unlikely to lower prices substantially, analysts and market participants interviewed by Reuters said. The promised quantities are too small, and Ukrainian attacks are preventing Russia from increasing production.
Trump said Russia would immediately supply 300,000 metric tons of diesel (2.25 million barrels), followed by another 500,000 metric tons in November and 1 million metric tons “immediately thereafter.” Spread over a month, the first shipment would amount to about 73,000 barrels a day.
That is too little to lower prices noticeably, experts warned. Analytics firm Kpler estimates that at least 400,000 additional barrels of diesel a day are needed. Consulting firm Baringa puts the minimum even higher, at 850,000 barrels a day.
“The diesel that Putin was going to sell, they were going to make it available to the global market one way or the other. The only difference is how much of it the U.S. was going to get,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said over the weekend. Trump initially said the supplies would go to the U.S. and global markets, but later clarified that the shipments would not go specifically to the U.S.
The Energy Policy Research Foundation calculated that Russia would need to produce an additional 384,000 to 509,000 barrels of diesel a day. The country currently produces about 1.4 million barrels a day and consumes roughly 1.2 million domestically, leaving only a small surplus for export.
“We question whether Russia’s refineries could even support an increase in exports with, by some estimates, up to 45% of Russia’s refining capacity currently offline,” Baringa said.
If Ukrainian attacks on refineries stopped, the facilities could begin repairs and eventually ramp up output, but that is unlikely to happen before the end of the year, sources told Reuters.
Russian oil and diesel
- Trump’s diesel deal with Putin, a rebuke from Brussels, and a squabble over Europe’s enormous Russian energy bill
- ‘We’re being used as a front,’ Zelensky says of Trump’s diesel deal with Putin
- ‘We’re done,’ Zelensky says, as Ukraine resumes strikes on Russian oil refineries. The Kremlin claims the attacks never stopped.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.
To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.