Turkey is stopping oil not under Russian sanctions, raising global energy market supply concerns

Tankers full of Kazakh oil are tangled in delays traveling through the Bosphorus Strait as a result of Turkey’s new proof of insurance measures for vessels carrying Russian oil now subject to EU sanctions and a G7 nation price cap.

Kazakh oil goes by pipeline through Russia and is loaded onto tankers at the port of Novorossiysk. Officials can track the origin of the oil on the bill of lading.

“It appears that all but one of the roughly twenty loaded crude tankers waiting to cross the straits are carrying Kazakh-origin oil,” a price cap official told CNBC. “These cargoes would not be subject to the price cap under any scenario, and there should be no change in the status of their insurance from Kazakh shipments in previous weeks or months,” said the official, who was granted anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the geopolitical issues.

Based on the number of vessels, over 20 million barrels of oil equaling $1.2 billion is stuck.

New Turkish insurance rules on oil tankers carrying Russian crude have slowed down the movement of tankers off the coast of Turkey and between Russia’s Black Sea ports and the Mediterranean since earlier this week when the price cap and sanctions first went into effect. 

If delays mount, refiners will seek alternative supplies from other countries or they will reduce operating capacity because they don’t have enough oil, which impacts the supply of gasoline and diesel, said Andrew Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates.

“If this continues for another week we will begin to see an impact on the oil market,” Lipow said.

Buyers of Kazah oil include Asia, Europe, and some quantities on the U.S. East Coast.

VesselsValue tells CNBC that the average wait for tankers at the Bosphorus has increased compared to last week by roughly 47%, when there were 14 vessels with an average wait duration of 64 hours and a combined tonnage capacity of 1.46 million tons.

Kazakhstan’s Energy Ministry said in a statement on Thursday that wait times are typical. “The waiting time in the Bosphorus and Dardanelles is six days for now. For the winter season, this is a normal wait; last year, the wait in the straits in December was about 14 days.”

MarineTraffic is monitoring the number of tankers waiting through the Bosphorus. The company, which uses AIS tracking of vessels, says the number of tankers waiting is now up to 40 and has more than doubled in recent days.

“We can see a growing list of crude and chemical tankers waiting to cross the Bosphorous from either side, with a variety of reported AIS destinations, including mainly Turkey and Russia, but also Ukraine, Georgia, Italy,” said Nikos Pothitakis, spokesperson for MarineTraffic. “The vessels in question are mainly flagged by the Russia, Greece, Liberia and Marshall Islands registries.”

On Wednesday, U.S. Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo spoke with Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Onal to discuss the implementation of the price cap on Russian seaborne oil. Adeyemo stressed the price cap regime only applies to oil of Russian origin and does not necessitate additional checks on ships passing through Turkish territorial waters, according to a statement from Treasury. Both officials said a simple compliance regime by Turkey to permit seaborne oil to transit the Turkish straits would help keep the global energy markets well-supplied.

“The price cap policy does not require ships to seek unique insurance guarantees for each individual voyage, as required under Turkey’s rule,” said the price cap official to CNBC. “These disruptions are the result of Turkey’s rule, not the price cap policy.”