Russia has increased fuel purchases from Belarus to a historic record in order to cover a deficit on the domestic market that has spread across regions from the Far East to Kaliningrad.

In June, supplies of motor gasoline to Russia from Belarusian refineries exceeded 181 thousand tons, which is three times more than in May (77 thousand tons), Reuters reports, citing industry sources. In the first half of the year, gasoline purchases from Belarus jumped 20-fold to 453 thousand tons.

Imports of diesel fuel from Belarus rose fivefold to 256 thousand tons in January–June. In addition, more than 16 thousand tons of Belarusian jet fuel were shipped to Russia in the past month, three times more than in May.

Belarus has two refineries with a combined capacity of 24 million tons per year and had previously expressed readiness to compensate for lost capacity at Russian oil refineries, which since the beginning of the year have repeatedly come under attacks by Ukrainian drones and have been forced to reduce processing to the lowest level since the early 2000s.

However, Belarusian gasoline is significantly more expensive than Russian gasoline: it costs about 111 thousand rubles per ton of AI-92 and 124 thousand rubles per ton of AI-95, according to Reuters. For comparison, wholesale prices on the St. Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange as of July 9 are 70.1 thousand and 76.2 thousand rubles, respectively.

Supplies from Belarus are hardly capable of changing the balance of the Russian fuel market, economist Kirill Rodionov notes: Belarusian refineries produce about 3.5 million tons of gasoline per year—less than the Omsk refinery alone (5 million tons). Belarus exports about 2.3 million tons a year, less than Russia consumes in a single month, Rodionov points out.

In total, the Russian authorities intend to purchase 400 thousand tons of gasoline abroad every month. In addition to Belarus, purchases have begun from India, which after the start of the war with Ukraine became the largest buyer of seaborne shipments of Russian oil. According to Reuters, the first shipments of Indian gasoline, amounting to 60 to 80 thousand tons, will arrive at Russian ports in June.