President Donald Trump’s plan to allow imports of Russian diesel appeared to falter this week after state and federal officials warned that handling any shipments could bring legal consequences and two tankers initially bound for the United States changed course, the Associated Press reported. Trump announced an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin on October 9 to make more than 300,000 metric tons of Russian diesel available immediately to US and global markets, with larger shipments to follow. The arrangement has yet to produce a confirmed US delivery.
Two sanctioned tankers that loaded at the Baltic port of Primorsk last month originally declared US East Coast destinations. As of Thursday both had changed course, one toward Brazil and the other into the Mediterranean, according to marine data company Kpler and vessel traffic site MarineTraffic. The Financial Times, which first reported the diversions, named the vessels as the Russian tanker Talisman and the Sierra Leone flagged Leruo. A third vessel was still in the North Atlantic headed toward the US but had changed its destination from New York to “for orders”, which leaves the unloading point open.
The legal fight is the cargo’s problem. The Treasury Department has authorized Russian diesel transactions, including sale, delivery, unloading and import, until April 7, and said on Thursday that the exemption was consistent with previous actions and in compliance with applicable laws. New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill advised port and terminal operators in her state to turn away ships carrying the fuel, warning in a letter dated Monday that profiting from the trade would be met with harsh penalties, and argued the administration lacked authority to override the import ban enacted by Congress after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. A bipartisan group of senators has urged Trump to negate the deal and warned banks, port authorities and fuel distributors that facilitating the imports could expose them to civil or criminal liability.
Kpler analyst Matt Smith said it was not clear the shipments had US buyers yet and that the third tanker might also change course, citing hesitancy about bringing the barrels onshore given the regulatory and sanctions implications. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said details of commercial shipments were not available but that all the diesel would find buyers. Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev dismissed the Financial Times report, posting “Fake. Tankers destined for the US continue on course.”
The stakes are set by the tightest US distillate market in two decades. Distillate stocks fell by 3.6 million barrels to 99.3 million barrels in the latest EIA print, the lowest since May 2003, and analysts cited by the AP said the imports were in any case unlikely to do much to lower US diesel prices, which have reached record highs during the war with Iran.