For nine days running in August, not a single crude cargo left the Russian port of Novorossiysk. The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) called it the longest stretch without reported loadings since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.
Ukrainian drones had hit the Sheskharis terminal in mid-August, and crude loadings at the port ended the month 58% lower than in July. It was one blow in a month when the pressure on Russia’s energy income showed up in almost every column of the data.
Revenue slips
CREA put Russia’s fossil fuel export revenue for August 2026 at EUR 604 mn per day, down 8% on the month, with volumes off 7%. Crude oil revenue fell 9% to EUR 350 mn per day. Seaborne crude was weaker still, down 13%, while pipeline crude earnings rose 14%.
Refined products fared worse. Revenue from seaborne product exports unloaded at their destinations dropped 32% to EUR 78 mn per day, the lowest since the invasion. Tuapse, the fourth-largest product export port before the war, has been under sustained drone attack since May and loaded no oil products for a third month in a row. Loadings across Russian ports were under half their August 2025 level, and CREA expects September product revenue to slide again.
The strikes on refineries have done something odd for a former top exporter of fuel. Russia imported a record 172,000 tonnes of fuel in August, more than seven times the previous monthly high. It took supplies from South Korea and bought back gasoline refined from its own crude in India.
Where the oil goes
China was the biggest buyer of Russian fossil fuels in August, at 51% of export revenues from the top five importers, or EUR 8.4 bn. Its seaborne crude unloadings rose 16% on the month and stood 62% above August 2025. Russia’s share of China’s seaborne crude imports reached 23%, against 9% a year earlier. India came second with EUR 4.8 bn in purchases, though its crude imports fell 24% after two record months. Turkiye took EUR 1.5 bn.
The EU ranked fourth, at just under 8% of the top-five total, or EUR 1.2 bn. Its Russian LNG volumes fell 46% to the lowest monthly level since the invasion. France received 57% of them. Hungary was the bloc’s largest buyer, with EUR 386 mn, all of it pipeline gas.
Sanctions evasion continued. CREA found that 52% of Russia’s seaborne oil travelled on sanctioned “shadow” tankers, and 45 shadow vessels were running under false flags at the end of the month.
A longer view from UBS
A separate note from UBS chief economist Arend Kapteyn, titled “Who Is Buying Russia’s Oil?”, argued that the restrictions mainly moved supply around. “The most visible effect of the restrictions on Russia’s oil exports seems to have been to redistribute the global supply of oil,” he wrote.
By his estimates, the EU’s share of Russian crude exports fell from 48% before the war to 4% by September, while China, India and Turkey together rose from 29% to 77%. Crude export volumes remain only around 10% under pre-war levels, and an estimated 61% of Russian crude now moves on the shadow fleet. OilPrice.com, which reported the note, said the strikes and the pivot to Asian buyers show the limits of both financial and military pressure on Moscow.
Sources
- August 2026 — Monthly analysis of Russian fossil fuel exports and sanctions – Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air
- UBS Data Shows Russian Oil Exports Only 10% Below Pre-War Levels | OilPrice.com
