In March and April 2025, Spanish ports imported 123,000 tonnes of diesel from Morocco, exceeding the total volume of imports in the previous four years (90,000 tonnes), according to figures from the Corporación de Reservas Estratégicas de Productos Petrolíferos (CORES), which falls under the Ministry of Ecological Transformation. Morocco did not previously export diesel to Spain, according to El País.
Industry experts suggest that some of this oil may come from Russia. Unlike the EU, which has imposed sanctions on Russian exports since February 2023 because of the invasion of Ukraine, Morocco has not imposed any sanctions on Russian oil. According to Vortexa, a platform that tracks ship movements, Morocco imported over one million tonnes of Russian oil in 2025, accounting for 25 % of its imports. In 2024, 9 % of the 6.5 million tonnes of imported diesel came from Russia, and in 2023 it was 1.62 million tonnes, El País reported.
Morocco, which has not had a functioning refinery since 2016, does not have an economic reason to import and re-export diesel as the cost would exceed world prices. Experts therefore assume that cheaper Russian diesel is blended in Morocco and then exported to Spain with Moroccan certification, thus concealing its origin. Such triangulation is common, according to the newspaper, for example to circumvent Algeria's sanctions against Spain.
Since 2023, Spanish authorities have been investigating suspicions that oil from Morocco and other countries may be of Russian origin. The Ministry for Ecological Transformation launched an investigation after the arrival of the first ships from Tangier, but the similar viscosity of the diesel makes it difficult to prove the origin. In the autumn of 2024, the National Fraud Investigation Office and competition authorities uncovered a so-called "diesel mafia" in Spain that traded 1.9 billion euros worth of diesel. The oil, allegedly from Russia, Syria or Iran, was transhipped in Turkey and Morocco to conceal its origin.
In addition to Morocco, imports of diesel are increasing from Singapore and Turkey, countries that previously did not export diesel to Spain. In 2023, Jorge Lanza, then head of Exolum, said it was impossible to confirm whether Russian oil was passing through Turkey to Spain. In February 2024, Josu Jon Imaz, head of Repsol, criticised the unfair competition caused by the import of cheap Russian diesel via third countries, which harms Spanish refineries such as those in Bilbao, Tarragona and Huelva, which employ thousands of people and invest in decarbonisation.
Despite EU sanctions, Russia's economy is resilient, growing by 4.1 % in 2024, more than the US or the Eurozone, according to the IMF. "Despite Western restrictions on Russian oil and gas, hydrocarbon revenues are flowing into state coffers. Tankers are now heading to India and China," says the BBC analysis.
El País/gnews.cz - GH
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