‘Ban imports’: New data reveals how Australian drivers are unknowingly funding Putin via refineries using Russian oil
Motorists filling up at Australian petrol stations have unwittingly funded Moscow's war on Ukraine, with nearly $1 billion flowing to refineries using Russian crude oil.
Australia is continuing to help bankroll Moscow’s war on Ukraine, with motorists and businesses unknowingly buying $980m in fuel refined by China and using Russian crude in the first eight months of 2025, according to new analysis of the fuel sector.
Three refineries in China — PetroChina Jieyang, Dalian and Qingdao Huangdao — all use Russian crude in their processing and all export refined fuel to Australia, the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air says.
The trio of Chinese refineries are added to several Indian operations — led by the massive Jamnagar plant — that have exported more than $4.6bn in fuel to the Australian market that contains Russian oil since Moscow launched its illegal war in Ukraine in 2022.
“To put it simply, Australia needs to ban imports of oil products from refineries using Russian crude,” CREA analyst Vaibhav Raghunandan told the Herald Sun.
In June, the Herald Sun revealed more than $3.7bn in fuel containing Russian oil had been bought by Australia from Indian refineries since 2023, resulting in Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s government receiving an estimated $1.85bn in taxes from Russian exporters.
CREA, which uses Kpler commodity intelligence, shipping, pipeline and refinery data to track Russian feedstock, estimates that Australia receives 10 per cent of all Russian-based export fuels produced by two Indian and three Chinese refineries.
It has meant that Australian purchases of Russian oil are on their way to being at least twice the $1.5bn value in taxpayer-funded military and humanitarian aid sent to Kyiv to date.
“Of countries currently sanctioning Russia, Australia is the single biggest diesel and jet fuel market for these refineries,” Mr Raghunandan said.
“At a more granular level, 11 per cent of their diesel exports (from the five refineries) and 10 per cent of their jet fuel exports end up in Australia.”
Australian businessman Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest and the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations are among those who have repeatedly called on the Albanese government to ban importation of any fuel that refineries refuse to confirm does not include Russian oil feedstock.
“The EU and the UK have recently announced bans on imports of oil products made from Russian crude, and it is time Australia follows suit to show a unified stance in support of Ukraine,” Mr Raghunandan said.
Almost two-thirds of the fuel imports from China, valued at $635m this year alone, originated in the PetroChina Jieyang refinery, with an estimated 4 per cent of the refinery’s total crude imports come from Russia, CREA said.
This month, another fuel tanker, the Singapore-flagged Proteus Bohemia, will arrive in Sydney with 78,000 tonnes of fuel from India’s Reliance-owned Jamnagar refinery, the world’s largest fuel plant that takes up to 500,000 barrels of oil each day from Russian state behemoth Rosneft.
Another tanker, the Hafnia Lillesand, filled with 99,000 tonnes from Jamnagar — which uses up to 45-55 per cent Russian feedstock — is due to soon arrive in Perth and was last birthed in Port Botany in July.
CREA said Australia could have a significant impact on the international tainted fuel market without increasing Australian domestic prices or supply pressures.
“Australia isn’t hugely reliant on imports from these refineries – roughly 8 per cent of Australian imports of refined oil products comes from refineries in India and China,” Mr Raghunandan said.
“So a ban would not affect supply or cause price shocks. It would though take away a key market for these refineries.
“A domino effect of this could be that Russia would have to deepen their discounts (and cutting their revenue) when selling crude to them in order to allow them to recover their margins.”
Originally published as ‘Ban imports’: New data reveals how Australian drivers are unknowingly funding Putin via refineries using Russian oil
