A Malta-flagged tanker called the Agioi Fanendes loaded about 40,000 metric tons of Russian diesel at the Baltic port of Primorsk on Thursday. According to tracking data and Reuters, it is headed for New York. It would be the first American-bound cargo under the fuel arrangement President Trump announced with Vladimir Putin. The Insider reported, in a snippet we have not verified against the full page, that it would be the first Russian diesel tanker to the United States since January 2022.
The cargo arrives as diesel averaged $6.32 a gallon nationwide on Friday, according to AAA figures cited by the Daily Caller. A year ago it was $3.63.
The catch, as several analysts told the Daily Caller News Foundation, is scale. The cargo works out to roughly 300,000 barrels. The country uses about 3.6 million barrels of diesel a day.
The Deal and the Treasury License
Trump announced the arrangement on Truth Social on Oct. 9, saying Russia would "immediately supply" more than 300,000 tons, followed by 500,000 tons in November and a million tons after that. The same day, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control issued General License No. 135, signed by OFAC Director Bradley T. Smith.
The license authorizes the "sale, delivery, offloading, and importation" of Russian-origin diesel, including into the United States, through April 7, 2027. It does not authorize debits to accounts of Russia's central bank, its National Wealth Fund or its Finance Ministry at American financial institutions. A Treasury official told the Daily Caller News Foundation the department "will look at options to facilitate this deal" at the President's request.
On the Russian side, Reuters reported that Russia lifted its own diesel export ban, and Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak has said exports could return to 3 to 3.5 million tons a month by year-end. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed Friday that the first tanker under the deal had left port, telling reporters: "Further shipments will continue at a steady pace from here on." He did not say whether the ship was headed for the United States. The New York destination rests on tracking data and Reuters; NBC reported, per MarineTraffic data, that the ship listed New York as its destination.
Fifteen Minutes of Fuel
The shortage behind the price spike is global. Max Pyziur of the Energy Policy Research Foundation puts the worldwide diesel shortfall at about 1.5 million barrels a day, caused mostly by Iranian attacks on Middle East refineries and, to a lesser degree, Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries. East Coast stocks of diesel and heating oil are about 20 million barrels, he said, about 10 million below the five-year average.
Pyziur told the Daily Caller News Foundation that "a 300 KB [thousand barrel] shipment is minute and won't swing either prices or inventories." Tom Kloza, chief energy adviser at Gulf Oil, called the cargo "a trifle" and wrote on X that it amounts to about 15 minutes of needed global fuel. Jason Isaac of the American Energy Institute said: "one tanker isn't going to solve our diesel supply problems." Steve Milloy of the Energy and Environment Legal Institute also said the effect will be small. Mark Wolfe of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association said states are worried about the purchasing power of LIHEAP, the federal heating assistance program.
Questions Still Open
Several things remain unsettled. Reuters says the buyer and seller are not known. According to RT, which we have not verified, Novak said three tankers have been dispatched; only one has been identified. The arrival date is also in dispute. The Daily Caller, relaying Reuters and LSEG shipping data, reports an arrival on Nov. 7, and The Insider put that four days after the midterms. Energy Aspects, in snippets from NBC and RT that we have not checked against the full pages, puts it at Nov. 10.
Then there is the law. On Oct. 11, Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, joined by Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, said the imports run counter to a 2022 law banning Russian energy imports. Their offices did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation, and the legal objection remains unresolved. The OFAC license is Treasury's authorization. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called the deal "very dangerous," according to a Daily Caller story from Oct. 18 that we have not read.
What Comes Next
The tanker is expected in New York on Nov. 7 or Nov. 10, depending on the source. The midterms are Nov. 3. Still to be learned are who is buying and selling the fuel, where the other two tankers are, whether the promised 500,000 tons arrive in November, and whether Congress takes any action. The license expires April 7, 2027.
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