Russia plans to extend its diesel export ban to the end of January, IFX reports

The extension, which carries exemptions, runs past the year-end date reported earlier and past the relief that China's quotas and Europe's reserve release were meant to bring.

Russia plans to keep its ban on diesel exports, with certain exceptions, in place until the end of January, IFX reports. That is a month beyond the year-end date reported earlier, and it cuts against the relief that China's fuel-export quotas and Europe's planned 42-million-barrel reserve release were meant to deliver.

The market has little slack to absorb it. European diesel futures have more than doubled this year, and Brent has climbed more than 75%. The ban has already been extended once before, through October, and Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak floated a partial lifting after that extension, which followed a wave of refinery strikes. The new plan shows no such loosening.

The strikes are the other half of the squeeze. Ukraine says it hit Russia's Novokuibyshevsk refinery, which put in doubt a reported pause in attacks on Russian energy targets. The Wall Street Journal says that halt is expected to last until after the US midterm elections and possibly further into November, but the Novokuibyshevsk hit suggests it has not held.

The Russia-US diesel arrangement does little to change the picture. A fourth tanker under it was set to leave on October 28, with three more en route, and a planned 40,000-ton shipment to the US is drawing political criticism. Donald Trump said Vladimir Putin pledged more than 300,000 tons of diesel immediately.

So the pressure on refined-product prices looks set to run into the new year, whatever happens to the Abu Dhabi talks or the tanker deal.