Russia's seaborne exports of refined oil products rose to a three-month high in September, but the growth came from cheaper fuel oil and naphtha as diesel shipments fell to their lowest in more than a decade, Bloomberg reported, citing Vortexa data. Russia kept diesel at home after Ukrainian refinery strikes and paid oil companies to supply its pumps, while high crude prices lifted its crude export earnings.
During the ongoing deep-strike campaign, Ukraine's long-range drones have knocked out more than half of Russia's oil refining capacity, Kyiv says, and Russia's budget oil revenues are falling even as it raises war spending. High global crude prices are softening that blow.
Total seaborne product exports reached about 1.17 million barrels a day in September. Fuel oil shipments rose 6% to about 613,000 barrels a day, the highest since April. Naphtha, a feedstock for petrochemicals, jumped 35% to 363,000 barrels a day. Exports of refinery feedstocks, including vacuum gasoil, rose to about 32,000 barrels a day, according to Bloomberg.
The trade has moved north. Almost 80% of fuel oil cargoes left from Baltic ports, and naphtha loadings there rose almost 50% as Ukrainian attacks disrupted Black Sea infrastructure. In September, Ukraine reported hitting an oil terminal in Novorossiysk, Russia's main Black Sea oil port—one in a string of attacks on Russia's Black Sea ports and oil sites.
Diesel and gasoil exports fell 28% to 144,000 barrels a day, the lowest monthly volume in Vortexa data going back more than a decade. Russia has restricted diesel exports to protect domestic supply after Ukrainian attacks on its refineries. Drones kept hitting them into October, from a Lukoil refinery in Volgograd to Gazprom's Salavat complex in Bashkortostan.
In September, Russia paid oil companies the biggest subsidy in more than four years to keep road fuel on the domestic market. It also imported about 350,000 tonnes of motor fuel by sea, mostly gasoline from India, Morocco, and Türkiye, Reuters calculations showed. Officials are considering letting some producers resume diesel exports in October to avoid overstocking, according to Interfax.
The diesel squeeze has reached the White House. US President Donald Trump stated on 30 September that diesel was hurt "not by the Middle East, but by what's going on in Russia, because those diesel refineries are being knocked out at a pretty alarming rate."
Russia's crude exports reached about 3.99 million barrels a day in the week to 27 September, and the estimated value of its seaborne crude shipments neared its highest since the full-scale invasion began, Bloomberg reported. Brent crude traded at about $102.60 a barrel on 9 October, according to Trading Economics data.
More than 50 Russian companies could default on their bonds this year, the most since 2009, a rating-agency analyst told Russian newspaper Izvestia, which reported it on 6 October.
Russia's wartime economy is straining under high interest rates, and the budget is too: the 2026 deficit has nearly doubled from the earlier forecast to a record $88 billion, with more deficits planned for the next three years as Moscow raises taxes to fund the war and plans its biggest defense budget since the full-scale invasion began.
A default is a situation in which a company cannot make promised interest payments to investors on time or repay borrowed money. If a payment is not made by the agreed deadline, the company becomes delinquent, which under certain conditions is recognized as a default.
So far this year, 20 companies have defaulted for the first time, compared with 24 in all of 2025, said Mikhail Nikonov of the Expert RA rating agency. Most of the companies that missed payments are small issuers of high-yield bonds, Izvestia reported.
In 2026, Russian companies have missed payments totaling 41 billion rubles (about $490 million), compared with 34 billion rubles (about $410 million) the previous year, according to investment bank Sinara.
By the end of 2026, the number of Russian companies unable to service their ruble-denominated debt on time could reach 40–50, the highest level since 2010, said Pavel Zholobov, junior managing director at the NRA rating agency.
The number of bond defaults in 2026 has already reached its highest level in a decade, Zholobov said. Similar figures were recorded in the mid-2010s: in 2014, 35 companies missed payments; in 2015, 52 did so; and in 2016, there were 44 issuers. This occurred in part after Western sanctions were imposed on Russia over its annexation of Crimea and its war in Donbas, as well as amid a halving of oil prices and a sharp weakening of the ruble.
There were more defaults only in 2009. At the time, amid the fallout from the global financial crisis, more than 100 issuers faced payment problems, while the volume of distressed debt reached nearly 200 billion rubles, Zholobov noted.
This time, the main reason for companies' difficulties in making bond payments has been the prolonged period of high interest rates, which has continued since 2023. Companies are raising financing at high interest rates but are unable to refinance their debt on more favorable terms, explained Ekaterina Sidorova, head of the Foreign Exchange, Commodities and Debt Markets Department at SberCIB Investment Research.
At the same time, the situation does not yet resemble a systemic debt crisis: defaults are primarily being recorded among companies with low credit ratings and high debt burdens, Sidorova said.
If a company fails to repay bond debt, it is given 10 business days to meet its obligations. If it fails to do so, the company may offer investors a restructuring—for example, by postponing payments in exchange for a higher interest rate.
The number of defaults will remain high in 2027, Sidorova believes.
High interest rates were a response to accelerating inflation in Russia. Domestic demand was outpacing production, Russia's Central Bank said in October 2023. Sanctions over the war and rising defense spending had also hit the economy and the ruble, which had lost about 25% against the dollar that year. The bank raised its key rate from 7.5% in the first half of 2023 to 15% by the fall.
Ukraine is also seeking to weaken Russia's economy as part of efforts to reduce its ability to finance the war. In particular, Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara said strikes on oil refineries are aimed at "bleeding the Russian war machine" and destroying its military and economic potential. According to the ministry, the attacks have knocked out more than 51% of Russia's oil refining capacity.
In the first half of July, Russian oil refineries processed about 3.9 million barrels of oil per day—the lowest level since March 2005. Due to the production cuts, Moscow was also forced to restrict fuel exports.
Ukrainian drugmakers could lose the certificates that let them sell in Uzbekistan, their most important export market, Ukrainian business outlet Ekonomichna Pravda reported on 7 October. Uzbekistan is ending remote factory inspections next year, and industry sources say its inspectors are wary of traveling to a country at war.
Russia's war keeps reshaping Central Asia's trade with both warring countries: Ukrainian refinery strikes pushed Russian fuel shortages into the region, and Kazakhstan gained leverage over a Russian retail giant.
Uzbekistan brings in about 30% of the Ukrainian drug industry's foreign-currency earnings, and one in 10 medicine packs sold there is Ukrainian, Ekonomichna Pravda wrote. By the outlet's count, at least three of Ukraine's five biggest drugmakers by revenue rank it as their top foreign market.
The currency from Uzbekistan lets manufacturers keep prices low in Ukraine and absorb losses from Russian strikes, three industry sources told Ekonomichna Pravda. Losing the market would force producers to raise domestic prices or pull low-margin medicines, which "will hit the Ukrainian patient," said Hennadii Vovk, former deputy head of Ukraine's State Service on Medicines and Drug Control.
Exports reached $114 million in January–June 2026, more than in all of 2021, said Yevheniia Piddubna, government relations head at Farmak, Ukraine's largest drugmaker. She said Uzbekistan takes 35% of Farmak's exports.
Data from the YouControl business registry, cited by the outlet, complicates that picture. In 2022, 30–35% of Farmak's products went to Uzbekistan. In 2025, Uzbekistan was not among its direct buyers. Farmak explained that wartime currency rules cap payment terms at 180 days, while foreign buyers often demand longer. So part of its trade runs through the group's Polish company.
Uzbekistan grants three-year certificates of good manufacturing practice (GMP) after inspecting the factory. Since the pandemic, it has allowed remote checks. That suited Ukraine, where Uzbek experts avoided traveling because of Russia's invasion, industry sources told the outlet. Remote inspections end on 1 January 2027.
Most Ukrainian certificates expire within a year. Farmak's runs out in November 2026, and the company may not manage to renew it in time. Three producers renewed under the old rules until 2029: Darnytsia, the Borshchahivskyi Chemical and Pharmaceutical Plant, and Farmex Group. According to Piddubna, Uzbekistan's regulator has drafted rules for remote inspections in force-majeure cases, but nothing has been put into practice. Industry sources said the Uzbek Presidential Administration must sign off.
Producers have asked the Office of the President, the Foreign Ministry, and the Health Ministry to raise the issue with Uzbekistan's government, but no Ukrainian experts have been sent there yet, the outlet reported. Russia, whose share of the Uzbek drug market is almost the same as Ukraine's, is ready to take Ukraine's place, its sources said.
The Middle East has seen many explosions of violence in recent years. But while the US-Iran war has grabbed the headlines this year, the rapidly escalating conflict between the Houthis and Yemen’s internationally recognized government and Saudi Arabia risks becoming just as consequential for the region. The complexity of Yemen’s internal conflict cannot be underestimated. […]
The post How Yemen’s renewed civil war could set the whole region ablaze appeared first on Asia Times.
The war between the United States and Iran is no longer just a confrontation between Washington and Tehran. A second contest is taking shape alongside and behind it. China is not fighting the United States directly, but its economic, technological and diplomatic links to Iran are complicating Washington’s strategy and ability to win the conflict. […]
The post The China factor behind the Iran war appeared first on Asia Times.
Pakistan exported about 169,000 metric tons of rice to Saudi Arabia in 2025, worth around $163 million.
The post Pakistan, Saudi Arabia set $3 billion agricultural export target within two years appeared first on BOL News.
CHICAGO: Corn and wheat futures have rallied to their highest prices in more than three years, though the factors driving the gains for each crop remain distinctly different. Wheat futures settled Friday at $7.84 per bushel, up 3.1% on the day, after hitting an intraday peak of $7.9025, the highest level since Feb. 14, 2023. ... Read more
The post Corn, wheat prices surge to multi-year highs on divergent supply threats appeared first on BOL News.
Purchases of crude oil and petroleum products increased 58.1%.
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In the second quarter of 2026, the EU recorded a trade deficit of €21.8 billion, as goods imported from non-EU countries (€701.8 billion) exceeded exports (€680.0 billion). This is the first trade deficit registered since the second quarter of 2023, the last of a series of deficits fuelled by soaring energy costs observed between late 2021 and mid-2023.
The deficit in the trade balance was primarily due to an increase in the deficit on energy products (from -€71.3 billion in Q1 2026 to -€101.1 billion in Q2 2026), raw materials (from -€7.9 billion to -€9.4 billion) and other manufactured goods (from -€8.3 billion to -€9.1 billion). Additionally, there was a reduction in the surplus of machinery and vehicles (from €24.9 billion in Q1 2026 to €23.2 billion) and other goods (from €11.6 billion to €9.1 billion).
On the other hand, there were surplus increases for chemicals (from €47.1 billion to €54.0 billion) and food and drinks (from €10.7 billion to €11.5 billion).
Source dataset: ext_st_eu27_2020sitc
Overall, exports increased by 5.4% (+€34.9 billion) and imports by 9.9% (+€63.4 billion) compared with the previous quarter.
Exports and imports had been declining since the second quarter of 2025, a trend that halted in the first quarter of 2026. Those declines had been partly attributed to tariff tensions.
Source dataset: ext_st_eu27_2020sitc
Products are defined according to the standard international trade classification (SITC). The main categories are:
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