Italy Doubles Exports to Libya, Cutting Russian Fuel to 5,000 bpd

Russian fuel exports to Libya have collapsed from 56,000 barrels per day in 2024–2025 to roughly 5,000 bpd this year, according to Kpler data. Over the same period, Italy doubled its exports to Libya and became the country's largest foreign supplier, with bilateral trade reaching nearly €6.8 billion in the first seven months of 2026 — up 44.9% year on year.

The numbers tell a blunt story. Italy now supplies 59,000 barrels per day of fuel to Libya, mostly from the ISAB refinery in Sicily and the Sarroch plant in Sardinia. That's the volume Russia used to hold, plus change. Moscow hasn't lost a marginal customer; it has lost the dominant position in Africa's largest proven oil reserve holder.

What drove the switch?

Libya's state-owned National Oil Corporation restructured its fuel procurement, awarding major supply tenders to international trading houses: Vitol, Trafigura and TotalEnergies. The Western traders deliver gasoline and diesel directly from Mediterranean refineries, shortening supply chains and cutting Moscow out of the loop.

Reuters reported that the tenders "will further reduce Russian product imports into Libya as Western firms source their volumes from refineries in the Mediterranean." For commodity traders and Mediterranean refiners, that's new contracted demand close to home. For Russian exporters, it's another sanctioned-market foothold gone.

The shift matters commercially well beyond fuel. Libyan importers have diversified procurement toward Western suppliers across the board, and Italian firms are following the barrels in.

How big is the Italian push?

Italian exports to Libya rose 101.3% to €2.033 billion in the January–July window, giving Italy a 17% share of all Libyan imports — the largest of any foreign partner. Refined petroleum products accounted for 58.8% of that export value.

Non-energy trade is growing too, and notably fast for a market of this size:

• Metal construction materials: €285.9 million, or 14.1% of Italian exports
• Growing volumes in furniture, design and consumer goods
• Supply-chain expansion by Italian firms already on the ground

Libero Testori, director of the Italian Trade Agency's Tripoli office, said his team observed "growing interest from companies operating in construction, furniture, design and consumer goods" as Italian businesses broaden local supply chains. Reconstruction-driven demand is doing what trade missions usually struggle to do.

What does this change for shippers and forwarders?

For Mediterranean carriers and ro-ro and container operators, a doubling of Italian exports to a single North African destination means more north-south cargo on lanes from Italian ports to Tripoli, Misrata and Benghazi. Italy's 17% import share makes Rome the gatekeeper for a market that Russian and other suppliers once contested.

For European refiners, Libya has become a reliable outlet at a time when African demand for refined products keeps growing. ISAB and Sarroch are now running at 59,000 bpd toward a single customer. Traders holding Mediterranean refining capacity — Vitol, Trafigura, TotalEnergies among them — have locked in tender volumes that previously flowed east.

For Russian exporters, the Libyan exit compresses an already shrinking set of outlets. A drop from 56,000 to 5,000 bpd — more than 90% of the volume gone in roughly two years — leaves Moscow with residual presence at best in a market it dominated as recently as 2025.

Where the trade goes next

Libyan procurement now sits firmly with Western trading houses and Mediterranean refining assets, and Italian exporters are diversifying from fuel into construction materials and consumer goods. Unless NOC revisits its tender structure, the trajectory points to further Russian displacement and deeper Italian commercial entrenchment across Libya's non-oil economy.