The fact is, Russia is getting its revenue for the Ukraine war from this.
So who the hell did pig face bidet sanction?
Sure as hell was not the Russians.
In an interview yesterday, Ursula said that the EU is going to continue buying oil from Russia — this is to punish Putin who can otherwise get even better price from Asia.
“ Russia had up to 79 million barrels of crude either traveling on tankers or held in floating storage over the past week, Kpler’s estimates have shown. That’s more than double the 27 million barrels of crude Russia had seaborne in February, just before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.”
It’s a four month trip to Shanghai (including weeks to cross load cargoes between ship types), versus a one week trip to Rotterdam.
So net export volume could still be significantly down, even while more is in transit.
Mingling floating storage volume in with the actual shipment volume, further masks how much is actually selling. All Russian storage is filling.
Depending on the price discount Russia is making, some of the Russian oil may still be going to Europe after transiting through India
“ China, for its part, registered in April its first annual increase in crude oil imports since January as shipments rebounded on the back of higher arrivals from Russia”
This is probably a combination of China feeling it is safe to buy Russian shipments (without incurring secondary sanctions), and the long lag times between order and delivery.
Russian oil is selling at a big discount to the spot market price - 20-30% in that chart, but reportedly it has even moved at a $65/barrel discount in some cases. It is hard to pass up those kinds of savings, if you are in business to make money, or have a limited budget.
China so far is not depending on Russian supply. They are currently increasing their reserves in storage at this discounted price (Chinese domestic demand is down due to COVID restrictions). They have also massively increased their domestic coal production since the war in Ukraine began, up 10%.
It looks like they are protecting against potential energy supply shocks, and snapping up some good deals. They will be able to drop Russian supplies overnight, if the sanctions regime turns against it. That probably won’t happen while Europe is still buying Russian oil.
If somebody has oil for sale, someone is going to buy it.
Biden has made Russia Great Again. The sanctions war has been a total failure as has the proxy war on the ground.
“The significant increase in India’s purchases of Russian crude has already drawn the attention of the United States, which has reportedly sent a U.S. federal government official to discuss U.S. sanctions on Russia and try to convince India to reduce its purchases of Russian oil.”
LOL. I suspect that India isn’t exactly rolling out the red carpet for the poor guy.