December 27, 2025
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Several times a month, tankers unload tens of thousands of barrels of oil products at a Turkish storage terminal in the port of Mersin. The vast majority of the ships come directly from Russia. And several times a month, tankers leave that facility carrying similar quantities bound for the European Union. The pattern has emerged under Western sanctions that were designed to choke off the supply of petrodollars that power Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Now, the EU is increasing scrutiny of the terminal and others like it, and considering sanctions on those ports that it suspects are providing a backdoor for Russian fuel into Europe.
The move is part of a broader effort to increase pressure on Russia. Energy exports are the lifeblood of the Russian economy.
A thicket of Western sanctions imposed since the war started in 2022 has disrupted Russia’s energy machine, but oil still flows—much of it through Turkey.
Turkey is the largest buyer of Russian oil products like diesel and fuel oil, and one of the largest of Russian crude after China and India. President Trump has asked Turkey and China to stop the trade, and placed tariffs on India for its purchases.
In February 2023, when the EU barred shipments of oil products from Russian ports into the bloc, those tankers flocked to Turkey. Before the sanctions, the storage terminal in Mersin, a little-known business called Turkis Enerji, barely had any ship traffic. Days after the sanctions took effect, the terminal received its first shipment from Russia in at least five years, according to data from ship-tracking firm Kpler.
This year, Turkis Enerji received nearly 6.5 million barrels of oil products, mainly diesel, of which 5.5 million came from Russia worth some $500 million, according to Kpler data analyzed by The Wall Street Journal and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, or CREA. The facility exported 4.4 million barrels to the EU in that time—more than four times what it had taken in from non-Russian sources—meaning its shipments to the bloc very likely contained Russian products, analysts say.
Tufan Ayrik, general manager at Turkis Enerji and part-owner of the company, said his facility has never stored fuel shipped from Russia. Asked about the 5.5 million barrels of fuel that, according to Kpler data, arrived from Russia at the company’s mooring in the bay of Mersin this year, Ayrik said he couldn’t discuss the company’s customers.
Russian refiners have shipped some $50 billion in diesel and other fuels to Turkey since sanctions came into force. Those fuel exports accounted for around 10% of Moscow’s oil revenue and 7% of its total energy revenue in that time, according to CREA, which monitors Russian energy flows.
Shipments from the Turkish terminals to the EU have more than doubled to around $24 billion over the same window, according to CREA’s analysis.
A storage terminal on the Sea of Marmara owned by the Turkish oil distributor Opet is now the world’s busiest trading point for Russian refined products by number of shipments, according to Kpler data. Some $10 billion in Russian refined fuels have passed through it since sanctions began, and some of the main buyers of fuel from the terminal are companies based in the EU, the data show.
European antifraud investigators have scrutinized the trade data, but they haven’t been able to prove the Russian fuel entering Turkey’s network of storage terminals is leaving for the EU, making sanctions enforcement difficult.
Turkey hasn’t allowed in-depth investigations into the flow of products through its terminals, the officials say.
“Investigators would need to track the flow of petroleum products through the various storage tankers, which would of course demand significant resources and coordination on [Turkey’s] end,” said Pablo Tedo Murua, head of the trade unit at the EU’s antifraud office, which is examining Russian energy flows.
The Turkish Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Trade declined to comment. Turkey hasn’t backed Western sanctions on Moscow, meaning purchases of Russian energy don’t violate Turkish law. The government has sought to maintain ties with the Kremlin even as it supplies drones and other weapons to Ukraine.
Opet said it provides storage services for customers and doesn’t own the products that are shipped to or from its facility.
“Opet does not conduct business with sanctioned parties or conduct any activity that is sanctionable for Opet,” a spokeswoman for the company said.
Going after the ports themselves would make the enforcement of sanctions easier, but it carries the risk of alienating Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally.
The West’s attempts to choke off Russian energy exports, including a price cap and sanctions against the Kremlin’s so-called shadow fleet, disrupted Russia’s economy but haven’t stalled its war machine. Measures to stamp out Russia’s remaining routes to market are accelerating.
On Dec. 15, the EU sanctioned two rival oil traders it accused of playing a major role in the clandestine Russian energy market. The Trump administration, which has called on the EU to stop all imports of Russian fuel, sanctioned Russia’s two largest oil companies this fall as part of the president’s sped-up effort to end the war in Ukraine.
The EU has agreed to end its purchases of Russian liquefied natural gas by the end of 2026, and stop buying Russian pipeline gas by November 2027.
One of Europe’s most far-reaching energy sanctions is set to hit Moscow on Jan. 21, when a ban on imports of oil products refined from Russian crude in other countries—mainly India, China and Turkey—will kick in. EU officials say that will put the burden on importers to show that their cargoes aren’t refined from Russian oil.
But the bloc’s ability to enforce the ban will be hampered by the network of storage terminals, middlemen and refineries that obscure the origin of fuel flowing into the continent. In Turkey, the businesses involved in the Russian oil trade range from the obscure, such as Turkis Enerji, to some of the biggest in the country, including Koç, a family-run conglomerate that owns a 50% stake in Opet. Koç is the only Turkish company in the Fortune Global 500.
Turkey has also been a big buyer of Russian crude—in addition to the refined products that flow through its storage terminals. Its massive imports of Russian refined products have also been used to meet domestic demand. That has allowed Turkish refiners, which rely heavily on Russian crude, to export more to the EU, analysts say. Trump pressed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to stop buying Russian oil during a visit to the White House in September.
Companies that move Russian oil around the globe exploit a 10% to 20% margin between the price of oil products coming out of Russia, which Moscow must sell at a discount, and the market price in the West, analysts say.
The trades are usually facilitated by a shifting cast of middlemen, often based in Dubai, who are willing to take the risk of trading Russian oil in the face of Western sanctions. Governments have imposed sanctions on dozens of these entities, but new ones have popped up, defying efforts to disrupt the trade.
More effective are the measures against facilities that handle Russian petroleum products. This year, when the EU sanctioned the Vadinar refinery, a plant in India 49% owned by Russia’s Lukoil, its shipments to the bloc ground to a halt. Instead, Vadinar began sending cargoes to less lucrative markets, including to Turkish facilities that are now being scrutinized by the EU. Last month, a sanctioned vessel unloaded 36,000 barrels of diesel from Vadinar at another offshore platform in Mersin, according to Kpler.
In another recent series of trades, a Turkish-flagged oil tanker shipped nearly $20 million worth of diesel from the Russian Black Sea port of Sheskharis to Opet’s Marmara terminal, arriving on Oct. 29, Kpler data show. On Nov. 4, the same ship departed with a similar quantity of refined products for a refinery in Corinth, Greece, owned by the Motor Oil Group.
The port of Sheskharis, a key hub for the Russian oil industry, lies across the Black Sea from Turkey. © Associated Press
“They were discharged at our terminal solely as part of a storage service for one of our customers and subsequently transferred to a third party on the date indicated,” said the spokeswoman for Opet, which is also one of Turkey’s largest gas-station operators.
Koç referred to Opet’s statement and declined to comment further. The Ozturk Group, which owns the other 50% of Opet, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Motor Oil Group purchased the shipment, according to Kpler. The Greek company, which is one of the largest refiners in southern Europe, has been the continent’s single largest buyer of Turkish refined products in recent years, sharply increasing its purchases since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. Before then, it was one of the top destinations in Europe for Russian fuel exports.
“Motor Oil Hellas does not buy, process or trade Russian oil or products,” the company said. “All its imports are certified of non-sanctioned origin.” Motor Oil didn’t respond to a request for comment about which body makes that certification.
Analysts say tougher measures will likely be needed to put a serious dent in demand for Russian oil globally, including a moratorium on imports of diesel and other fuels from Turkey.
“The only durable way to do that is to ban petroleum products imports from countries that use Russian oil,” said Martin Vladimirov, an analyst at the Center for the Study of Democracy, which tracks Russian energy shipments. Further, he said, Europe “needs to crack down on a member state level and there needs to be a pan-EU authority that actually goes after several cases.”
Write to Matthew Dalton at Matthew.Dalton@wsj.com
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