The sanctions window Egypt didn’t miss

Egypt’s Russian crude imports surged 217% in April to 707k bbl / d from the 223k bbl / d recorded in March after a mid-April US Treasury sanctions waiver, according to S&P Global Commodities data — and Russian products imports nearly doubled to 499k bbl / d, taking Egypt's share of Russia’s April seaborne product exports to almost a quarter.

Part of it may simply be demand: Regional conflict has cut off traditional import routes — crude from Iraq and Kuwait, products from the UAE — with only limited Saudi volumes still arriving via the Red Sea, former oil minister and Senate Energy Committee chairman Osama Kamal tells EnterpriseAM. Egypt has meanwhile been lining up alternative barrels from Libya and Algeria — but the scale of April’s Russian import surge goes well beyond what supply substitution alone would require.

Egypt’s total refining capacity stood at around 650k bbl / d in March — meaning April’s Russian crude imports alone already exceeded what the country, consuming 750k bbl / d on average, can process.

On the products side, total consumption averaged around 690k bbl / d in FY 2023/24 — meaning Russian products alone would have accounted for the equivalent of nearly three quarters of that level last month.

“Russian flows are less the story than the signal,” Wolfgang Lehmacher, former head of supply chain and transport industries at the World Economic Forum, tells EnterpriseAM. “Barrels are being parked, blended, and redirected.”