EXECUTIVE SUMMARY A s with previous years, 2023 has come with its challenges - the repercussions from the war in Ukraine continued to reverberate for fuel suppliers but it has shown that even the most intractable of issues can be overcome through close cooperation between industry and governments. With the announcement of the ban on Russian oil imports to the UK by December 2022, UK importers took early action to phase out Russian oil, with Russian imports decreasing by 95% by the second half of 2022, with official sanctions banning Russian oils from the end of the year. Whilst the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic has seen demand for oil products increase in the years since 2020, demand levels are yet to fully recover. In addition , 2022 has seen the conflict in Ukraine cause enormous complications in the UK and the global oil markets, which has had a significant impact on the UK fuels sector. Below, you will find some of the most significant year-on-year changes from such challenges in the fuels supply chain, explored further in this year’s fuels statistics report. Russia The conflict in Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions imposed on Russia by Western countries, where historically the UK and EU were heavily reliant on Russian imports, have caused a major shock in the international energy markets, rekindling the notion for nations to prioritise energy security and affordability. Sanctions imposed by the UK and the G7, such as the Russian import ban into G7 countries and a price cap on international Russian oil sales, aimed to limit the Russian government’s ability to fund the conflict in Ukraine, whilst also minimising global supply chain disruptions which would cause excessive commodity price rises. Recovery from Covid A combination of rising demand due to a faster-than-expected recovery from Covid-19, coupled with the disruptions in the global energy supply chains caused by the conflict in Ukraine, has induced significant pricing pressures on crude oil and oil products globally in 2022. This was acknowledged by the Competition Markets Authority in the recently published UK road fuel market study.
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Fuels Statistics 2023
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