Industry lobby group Energia has reported that Russia remained the largest single petroleum supplier to Belgium in 2022, providing about a fifth of the country's total petroleum imports despite

the European Union's ban on Russian petroleum that was imposed in December 2022.

In fact, Russia's market share of imported oil in 2022 amounted to more than 6 million tonnes, making up 22% of the total oil imported into Belgium. This figure is lower than Russia's market share in 2021, which stood at 29%. Despite the decrease in oil imports from Europe, which made up only 28% of imported oil in 2022 compared to 42% in 2021, rising imports from the Middle East and Africa helped to offset the decline. Photo by Christophe Gesché, Wikimedia commons.