Rabat – Reports suggest Morocco is among the countries that are contributing to increasing Russian diesel exports amid the European Union’s embargo on Russia.
Russia’s fuel shipments amounted to about 1.5 million barrels a day in the first 19 days of March, Bloomberg reported on Monday, adding: “If that rate is maintained, this month will see the highest exports in data going back to the start of 2016.” Bloomberg.
Despite the West’ sanctions on Russia, the country’s diesel exports have not experienced a major dip as Brazil, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey, and many other countries in the Global South have been turning to Russian diesel products amid a deepening worldwide energy crisis.
Earlier this week, Morocco’s government acknowledged there has been a noted increase in Russian gas exports to Morocco.
Morocco’s “Russian gas imports rose to 13% in the period from early January to February 27,” Minister of Economy Nadia Fettah Alaoui said.
However, Morocco’s imports of Russian energy products have raised concerns in some circles in the country, with opposition MPs having especially grilled the government over perceived fraud and pricing schemes by energy companies active in the Moroccan market.
In a recent report that drew attention to the growing demand for Russian oil in Morocco, the Wall Street Journal echoed concerns over Russian products “being blended” with oil products from Gulf countries and re-exported to Europe in defiance of EU sanctions.
“That prowess disguises the ultimate origin of the products and complicates Western efforts to remove Russian fossil fuels from their economies,” the journal wrote.
Abdelkader Taher, a member of the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USF), also called on the Moroccan government to open an investigation into what he called “manipulation” of fuel prices by energy companies operating in the Moroccan market.
According to the USF MP, some companies change the documentation of their Russian imports, passing their products off as imported from the Gulf countries in order to set higher prices.
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