On Monday, Bloomberg reported that Russian diesel shipments are poised to hit their highest monthly export rate since 2016. That is despite a raft of Western sanctions and other efforts by the West to deny Russia sales to the EU market, which had previously been the nation’s biggest buyer of diesel.

Despite an EU embargo launched in February on seaborne crude imports of Russian oil and petroleum products, including diesel, so far there is no indication Russian exports are being reduced, or the nation has been losing any customers.

According to Bloomberg, citing tracking data from Vortexa, Russia shipped 1.5 million barrels of diesel in the first 19 days of March. That marked a substantial increase over the previous month.

The outlet said, “this month will see the highest exports in data going back to the start of 2016,” if the current rate is maintained.

As traders seek to push the product into new markets, the bulk of Russian diesel cargoes are now heading for Türkiye and Morocco. In addition, other nations, such as Tunisia, Brazil, and even Saudi Arabia have all increased purchases of the fuel from Russia lately.

Mikhail Turukalov, an independent US-based analyst said, “Russia’s refinery runs remained high so far in March, which allowed robust diesel output,”  adding domestic producers “seem quite confident they can sell their volumes to foreign buyers – the discounts they offer are deep enough and there are new markets for the fuel.”

Since the EU launched its embargo on Russian oil products, Moscow has redirected its trade flows, sending its cargoes which were previously destined for Europe, to Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and ship-to-ship loadings.