South Korea starts importing naphtha from Tunisia amid Russian sanctions

NEW DELHI South Korea has started importing naphtha from Tunisia, which has seen a jump in supplies from Russia, highlighting the unusual trading routes emerging after Western sanctions against Moscow over its war in Ukraine.

South Korea, the world's largest importer of naphtha, bought 590,000 tons of the fuel used in petrochemicals from Russia last year, or nearly a quarter of its total naphtha imports, according to trade flow data from Refinitiv.

The figures show that the flows have almost dried up.

The data from the state-owned Korea National Oil Corp KNOC shows that Seoul imported 740,000 barrels of naphtha from Tunisia last month.

That compares to none in the whole of 2021 and just 192,000 barrels in November 2020 - the only prior month of naphtha imports from Tunisia in KNOC data from 2019 onwards.

According to the Refinitiv data, Seoul is set to receive about 274,000 tons of naphtha this month from Tunisia.

Manish Sejwal, vice president of market analysis at Rystad Energy, said that the rerouting is mainly to avoid the scrutiny of the West and take advantage of cheaper Russian barrels.

South Korea's trade ministry doesn't want to say anything. Russian naphtha began landing at the La Skhirra port in Tunisia from August this year and the North African nation shipped its first cargo to South Korea last month, according to Refinitiv data.

Tunisia, which rarely imports naphtha, received 410,000 tons of the light distillate from Russia in August-November this year, compared with none in the whole of 2021, according to the data.

An official at Tunisia's energy ministry said that Tunisia doesn't import naphtha Tunisia exports it. He was not authorized to speak to the media because he was not allowed to speak to the media.

In the last year, Tunisia exported an average of 21,000 tons of naphtha per month, mostly to European nations, according to the Refinitiv data.

Russian industry sources said naphtha cargoes were shipped to La Skhirra for storage while traders wait for better prices.

Four of the nine vessels from Russia that went to Tunisia carrying naphtha were chartered by Coral Energy.

Coral Energy did not have storage in Tunisia and had chartered vessels for its non-Tunisian customers under the deals done on a delivered basis.

Vessels that have been loaded from Russia's Novorossiysk port for discharge in Tunisia's La Skhirra port have been loaded from Russia's Novorossiysk port.

Vessels that have left Tunisia's La Skhirra port have left for discharge in South Korea.