Before the full-scale war in Ukraine, the Turkish oil terminal Dörtyol usually received Iraqi oil and transshipped it to tankers, but when the first sanctions against Russia began to affect the export of oil and oil products, tankers with cargo from Russia began to call at Dörtyol one after another, the FT writes. Subsequently, a significant part of them went to Europe, including after the latter imposed an embargo.

Turkey has become one of the main buyers of oil and oil products from russia. In some cases, it used Russian fuel to sell on the domestic market and export its already more expensive diesel. In others, as in the case of Dörtyol, the oil products were simply shipped to Europe without any processing.

From January to November 2023, 10.5 million barrels of oil and oil products were delivered to the terminal by sea, of which 9.2 million, or almost 90%, came from Russia. For comparison, 583,870 barrels arrived from Russia in 2021, and 3.7 million in 2022.