Turkey’s oil imports surged by 43.2% year-on-year in June, while liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) purchases dropped by 1.5%, according to data by the country’s energy watchdog Thursday.

Oil imports amounted to some 3.99 million tons in June, the Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK) said in its monthly oil market report.

Crude oil imports, the category with the highest oil import volume, rose by 73% in the month to 2.85 million tons, the data showed.

In June, Turkey imported the highest volume of oil and oil products from Russia, totaling 1.13 million tons. Iraq and Kazakhstan followed with 985,868 tons and 344,234 tons, respectively.

Oil imports and consumption in the country showed growth this June due to a recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the same month of 2020.

Oil refinery product exports increased by 161.7% to 1.08 million tons and oil refinery product output also rose by 39.8% to 3.17 million tons in June.

Total domestic oil product sales in June increased by 10% to 2.72 million tons compared to the same month of last year.

On the other hand, the LPG imports fell to 248,358 tons in June from a year ago, the EPDK data showed.

Imports came from Algeria, the U.S., Greece, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Italy, Libya, Russia and Norway.

Turkey’s LPG production in June rose to 95,376 tons, marking a year-on-year jump of 110.4%.

Exports also rose to 7,124 tons this June from 2,334 tons in June last year.

Total LPG sales in June increased by 3.9% to around 359,551 tons, comprising 287,609 tons of autogas, 63,687 tons of bottled LPG and 8,255 tons of bulk LPG.