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The Spanish Strategic Reserves Corporation for Petroleum Products has reported an unprecedented surge in diesel imports from Morocco, with Spanish ports receiving 123,000 tons between March and April 2025, more than the total volume imported over the past four years combined.
The sharp increase has raised suspicions in Spain, with several media outlets citing industry sources who claim that part of the diesel arriving from Morocco may actually originate from Russia. However, due to the complex logistics involved, tracking the true origin of the fuel remains nearly impossible.
While the European Union imposed strict sanctions on Russian hydrocarbon imports in February 2023 in response to the invasion of Ukraine, Morocco has not applied any such restrictions. The war, now entering its third year, continues to impact global energy markets.
Available data shows that Morocco still purchases significant quantities of diesel from Russia. In 2025 alone, vessels carrying more than one million tons of Russian diesel docked at Moroccan ports, representing around 25% of Morocco’s total diesel imports, according to Vortexa, a platform that monitors global shipping movements. In 2024, Russian diesel made up 9% of Morocco’s 6.5 million tons of diesel imports, while in 2023, purchases stood at approximately 1.62 million tons.
Industry experts interviewed by El País pointed out that it would not be economically rational for a country without operational oil refineries, Morocco has had none since 2016, to purchase diesel with the intention of re-exporting it at a profit, as this would result in higher prices than those on the global market. They suggest that Russian diesel may be stored in Morocco, blended with local fuel, and then re-exported to Spain under Moroccan documentation, effectively obscuring its Russian origin.
Such transnational arrangements to bypass sanctions are common in the energy sector and beyond. Experts note that Algeria has also been known to reroute products through third countries to avoid trade restrictions, a method that may also apply to diesel imports now arriving in Spain from Morocco and other nations.
Since the arrival of the first diesel shipments from Tangier, Spain’s Ministry for Ecological Transition has opened an investigation but has yet to confirm whether the fuel originated in Russia. Analysts emphasize that diesel is particularly difficult to trace due to its global uniformity, unlike crude oil, which is easier to identify based on origin.
