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Join on Telegram Rabat – Moroccan parliamentarian members (MPs) continue to express concerns about Morocco’s imports of Russian gas.
Member of the People’s Movement (MP) Driss Sentissi, called on the Moroccan parliament to summon Energy Minister Leila Benali to provide MPs with further explanation on the country’s imports of Russian hydrocarbon products.
“We want to know everything about the refined diesel from Russia, which is trying to evade its hydrocarbons from Western Sanctions,” Sentissi told Moroccan news outlet Le360.
Several MPs, politicians, and media raised similar concerns, condemning the manipulation of the product’s origins which is then being sold on Morocco’s fuel market.
In February, member of the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP) Abdelkader Taher called on the government to open an investigation into the situation, accusing some companies of forging import documentation.
Taher agreed that some Moroccan companies have forged import documents to make it look as if their hydrocarbon products are being imported from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and the US.
The MP explained that the companies manipulate import receipts to sell their energy goods at much higher prices to make “staggering revenues.”
“All of this happens with the explicit complicity of the company managing the fuel depot in the port of Tanger Med, away from any monitoring of the state financial apparatus,” the MP said, urging the Ministry of Economy to open an investigation to determine and detect the source of fuel imports and their prices.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) also published a report in January on the same situation, stressing that concerns have been raised about Russian oil cargoes “being blended with other oil products and re-exported.”
“That process disguises the ultimate origin of the products and complicates Western efforts to remove Russian fossil fuels from their economies,” the Wall Street Journal wrote.
The Moroccan government commented on the situation earlier in March, saying that the import of Russian gas before and with the current government has always been within the range of 10% of total imports.
“Import of Russian gas was in the range of 9% in 2020 and did not exceed 5% in 2021,” the government stated.
Morocco’s imports of Russian diesel increased to reach 2 million barrels as of January compared to 600,000 barrels in 2021, according to the WSJ, which suggested that Russia would have sent “at least 1.2 million barrels” in February 2023.
