Ukraine has been forced to seek alternative fuel supplies as the Russian invasion affects its traditional supply routes, leaving the war-ravaged country with an acute shortage of gasoline.
A Russian naval blockade has prevented imports from Azerbaijan and Romania across the Black Sea, while Belarus, once a major supplier, is no longer delivering fuel after its president Alexander Lukashenko let his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin use the his country as a base to attack Kyiv.
Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, said the war-torn country was receiving fuel “wherever we can get it.”
“All our imports are from the EU,” he told the Financial Times in an interview. “We only used the countries and ports closest to Ukraine in Poland and Romania, now we are the most important in Belgium and the Netherlands.”
Up to 230 fuel trucks cross into Ukraine daily, while new agreements with the EU and Poland aim to simplify customs and border control procedures that have left trucks lined up for miles.
The April airstrikes destroyed Ukraine’s only major oil refinery in central Ukraine, Kremenchuk, which accounted for about 40 percent of total gasoline and diesel supplies, as well as several fuel depots in Ukraine. the whole country as part of a Russian attempt to attack the supply routes of the Ukrainian army. .
Fuel shortages have shut down gas stations across the country and threatened to leave drivers stranded.
Filling requires queuing for hours or navigating the card system that gas stations have introduced to ration fuel at fixed prices.
Some Ukrainians are resorting to a thriving online black market run by OLX, the Ukrainian equivalent of Craigslist, which includes hundreds of classified ads selling ration cards, gas cans, or even used water bottles full of fuel.
Before the war, Ukraine only imported 5 percent of its fuel across its borders with Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania, according to Rostyslav Shurma, deputy head of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office. Now the figure is 100 percent. Kyiv has already doubled its capacity on the EU’s borders, he said, and wants to double it even further.
The Ukrainian government initially defended price controls, saying they avoided the wartime spirit, but then abandoned regulation of fuel prices in May after some sellers complained that the measures had provoked them. losses at their gas stations.
Alexander Kats, owner of a gas station chain in central Ukraine, is struggling to find enough fuel to keep them running. “It simply came to our notice then. Just crazy, ”he said.
A few days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, Kats had seen helplessly as an airstrike hit a fuel tank he owned south of Kyiv. With emergency services overflowing, the fire lasted for several days, burning about 10,000 tons of fuel and sending thick clouds of black smoke rising into the sky.
The rush to import more fuel from Europe has already alleviated some of the shortage after a peak in May. Serhiy Kuyun, head of energy consultancy A-95, said the number of diesel fuel suppliers has more than doubled in the past month, although propane-butane and petrol supplies are growing more slowly.
In June, Ukraine will import up to 600,000 tonnes of fuel from Europe, a tenfold increase from the 60,000 tonnes it imported in March.
As supply increases, Ukraine has relaxed restrictions on the purchase of fuel from 10 to 20 liters per person. Kubrakov said he hoped the situation would stabilize in the autumn once Kyiv signed more long-term contracts with foreign suppliers.
The global effort to help Ukraine export its grain after Russia cut off its main supply routes to the Black Sea is also helping the country import more fuel, he added, because trains and trucks carrying fuel use the same routes.
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European banks, however, are reluctant to finance any deal to supply more fuel because of the risks of war, according to Kuyun.
Neighbors of Ukraine are also unable to cope with rising demand. To combat rising regional wholesale prices, Hungary limited discount fuel sales to local residents last month.
High demand is likely to continue as long as Ukraine needs to continue fueling its war effort, Katz said. “Tanks, artillery, trucks and logistics have to be brought in,” he said. “It simply came to our notice then. There are only so many things you can do in one day. “