Bitumen Bazaar reports that Russia's military action in Ukraine is expected to have a major negative effect on the Ukrainian bitumen import business, according to European trading and supply firms. 
Ukraine imported around 866,000t of bitumen in 2020, and market participants say this is likely to have risen further last year.
But several Mediterranean bitumen traders ruled out, at least for the time being, any cargo deals with Ukrainian importers. Several suppliers agreed term deals last year for tanker cargoes into the country's Black Sea terminals, although numerous logistical and payment issues had already made such movements increasingly difficult. 
Because of that, Ukrainian cargo importers had already been reluctant to sign 2022 term agreements, and they and their potential suppliers expected a switch to spot business.  But this is now on hold. European cargo traders said the overnight developments had further weakened bitumen supply/demand fundamentals, especially in the eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea area, adding to early signs of another weak year for road construction and bitumen consumption in Romania and Bulgaria. 
Firms dealing with Lithuanian, Belarusian and Polish rail and truck flows to Ukraine said business was likely to be hard hit. 
According to Vortexa data, 175,000t of Mediterranean bitumen was delivered last year to Ukrainian ports — principally Ochakiv, Mykolaiv and Nika-Tera — in cargoes mainly shipped from Greek and Italian terminals. That import business had begun for the first time in August 2020, when Russia-Ukraine tensions all but halted cross-border flows into Ukraine from Russia. 
According to Argus, Ukraine imported an estimated 120,000t of bitumen from Poland last year, around half and half from Lotos and PKN Orlen refineries and terminals, around 50,000t from Lithuania annually and around 40-50,000t per month in the peak season from Belarus, with regional suppliers having held out hopes for a rise in such land-based movement into Ukraine this year. Some trading firms expect Azerbaijan cargo export flows by Socar via the Georgian Black Sea port of Kulevi to replace some of the shortfall in Ukraine's imports. 
Polish oil trading firm Unimot indicated in January it saw bitumen exports to Ukraine as a key opportunity emerging from its proposed acquisition of bitumen and logistics assets from Lotos. The 450mn zlotys ($113mn) deal for Lotos' three bitumen production and supply plants in Gdansk, Czechowice and Jaslo, will make Unimot Poland's second biggest bitumen supplier on a volume basis.