Yesterday, Russia announced an export ban on diesel/gasoil. The move could potentially remove more than one mb/d of distillates from the global market and it underlines that Russia has fuel shortages and problems keeping its refineries up and running.

The timing of the move is interesting as the West struggles with low distillate inventories in Europe and the US ahead of the peak winter season (see chart 1).

We should likely expect a continued upwards pressure on retail Diesel prices in coming months on top of already strong price trends in the energy space.

A diesel crisis could very well be brewing here. We will look for ways to add Diesel exposure to our books over the course of the day.

Chart 1: Relatively low diesel inventories already before the Russian decision