Russia is exporting crude oil at rates higher than before its 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the barrage of Western sanctions that followed it, many targeting specifically the oil industry.
Four years after those events, Russia is exporting oil at 6% higher levels than before that, Finland-based think tank Centre for Research on Clean Air said in a report, as cited by AFP.
“We’ve seen a significant drop in Russian fossil fuel export earnings as a result of new measures and greater enforcement,” one of the authors of the report, analyst Isaac Levi, told the publication. However, he added, “there are still significant loopholes and areas that have been unaddressed by sanctioning countries.”
“We propose a ban of imports from any refinery or storage terminal that has received a shipment of Russian oil in the previous six months,” Levi said. Imposing such a ban, though, is much easier said than done because of its potential impact on international prices and the economies of oil-importing countries, including most of Europe, India, and China—the latter two being Russia’s biggest oil customers.
Despite an overall increase in Russian oil flows abroad, the Centre for Research on Clean Air also reported that in the 12 months to February 24, these flows had dipped by 6%, with oil export revenues also down, by a more sizable 18%. The total annual export volume stood at 215 million tons, while revenues came in at 85.5 billion euros, equal to some $100.73 billion.
Pere CREA, as much as 93% of Russia’s oil exports went to China, India, and Turkey. India has now started to dial down its imports of crude from Russia under pressure from the United States, which slapped a 25% tariff on Indian imports as “punishment” for its continued buying of Russian oil. As a result, China has now been buying even more oil from Russia, not least because of the deep discounts that the Indian squeeze has prompted.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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