Over the past two years, transport fuel flows have experienced increasing regionalisation, particularly in the Pacific Basin where 1mbd of new refining capacity has come online between January 2024 and February 2026.
Unlike the Pacific Basin, the Mediterranean has not been reshaped by a wave of new refining capacity, yet is still showing the strongest Atlantic Basin uptick in intra-regional transport fuel flows.
Why the Med shows opportunity
The 2025 spring maintenance season showed how quickly the Mediterranean can lose flexibility. As the Med’s ageing refining system has become more exposed to weather-related disruptions, unplanned outages like those seen in spring 2025 are becoming more frequent and can remove more capacity than planned for longer periods. Between May and June 2025, diesel and jet prices rose by more than 30% and gasoline by around 20% (General Index), and a repetition in 2026 could cause similar price spikes.
Gasoline and jet fuel move more intra-Med, but jet shows growing seasonal import dependence
Intra-Med gasoline imports have been growing consistently since early 2023, with more redistribution intra-Med and lower exports to outside regions. North Africa (especially Libya and Egypt) has seen Med-origin gasoline imports reach seasonal highs last year in September and December. However as intra-region reliance grows, unplanned refinery outages can create short-term intra-Med dislocations. Jet fuel intra-Med seaborne arrivals have also seen consistent growth over the past two years, with Italy and Lebanon showing the strongest increase in imports. However, despite growing intra-Med supply rebalancing, the region’s overall jet fuel import demand is also on the rise.
Seaborne Med jet/kero imports from outside regions has trended higher due to growing summer demand since 2021, with 2025 imports reaching a historical data set high.
With constrained seaborne jet fuel supplies (regionalisation of top producers), this is a flow to watch out for starting April-May, as the market can tighten quickly, especially as Ruwais and Ras Tanura refineries in the Middle East are scheduled to undergo maintenance in the second half of Q1 (Argus).
Diesel import reliance from outside the Med has grown
Contrary to gasoline and jet fuel, intra-Med diesel arrivals have stayed relatively flat over the last five years, while imports from outside the region have done more of the work in meeting incremental import demand.
Due to this stronger reliance on external supplies, diesel supply disruptions within the Med are likely to cause longer price spikes than gasoline and jet fuel, as reshuffling takes longer. This was especially visible last summer, when power generation demand lifted regional diesel pull, particularly into Egypt, and unplanned maintenance limited the short-haul diesel supply.
This year, the risk of a similar diesel for power generation spike may be lower however. LNG availability into the Mediterranean has improved versus last year’s tightness, which could limit diesel for power generation. However, refinery reliability remains a key swing factor, and if last year has taught one thing: balances can shift very quickly.
Source: Vortexa
