Türkiye increases oil imports from Iraq and Kazakhstan

Turkey's largest oil refineries are buying more Iraqi and Kazakh oil in response to the latest sanctions on Russia, Reuters reported.

One of the largest Turkish refineries, SOCAR Turkey Aegean Refinery (STAR), owned by SOCAR, has recently bought four cargoes of crude from Iraq and Kazakhstan for December arrival.

This amounts to 77,000 to 129,000 barrels per day (bpd).

One of the four cargoes is a Kazakh KEBCO shipment, the same in quality as Russian Urals crude, but sourced from Kazakhstan. SOCAR's STAR refinery imported just one other cargo of the Kazakh grade this year.

The other major Turkish refiner - Tupras is increasing purchases of non-Russian grades similar in quality to Russian Urals, for example Iraqi grades.