Russia in July will cut oil exports via its western ports to 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd), down almost 500,000 bpd from June, as processing at its refineries is set to rise after maintenance, two trade sources said on Tuesday.

Russia’s July oil shipments on a daily basis will fall by 23% versus from June’s plan, Reuters calculations show.

Offline refining capacity in July is seen declining to 1.8 million metric tons from 4.1 million tons in the most recent estimate for June, according to Reuters calculations based on data from industry sources.

Oil loadings from Russian Baltic ports, Primorsk and Ust-Luga, which includes exports of Kazakh KEBCO crude oil and Urals, will decline to just 4.9 million tons, the sources said.

Meanwhile, loadings of Urals, KEBCO and Siberian Light grades from the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk are set to fall to 1.7-1.8 million tons, the sources said.

One of the sources said that the loading plan for the next month is short as most Russian large refineries that have remained idle in June will resume processing.

Russia’s oil loadings are also capped by the state’s pledge to the OPEC+ group of oil-producing nations to cut output.

Source: Reuters reporting by Reuters and edited by Jason Neely