Russia is inherently not competitive on price, due to the nature of their deposits, their harsh climate and the long distances to port. Their breakeven was somewhere in the $50’s per barrel before the war.
Even once it is loaded on ships, Russian oil is mostly much further from major markets (outside of Europe), and now faces significantly higher transaction costs, like insurance, as well as those large transportation costs.
Even if prices stayed far above their Pre-COVID norms (which now does not seem likely), there are not enough tanker ships in existence to take the rest of the oil that Europe imports from Russia, on the longer trips to Asia - especially not enough arctic ice rated tankers.
On December 5th, Europe stops accepting oil tanker loads from Russia, and their export volume is going to take a hard hit, no matter what discounts they could offer. Currently, European buyers are still legally stocking up on Russian oil tanker loads, but that will end precipitously in December.
As prices drop back to their pre-COVID, pre-war norms, Russia’s breakeven price is now even higher than before. Russia is going to have to absorb the bulk, if not all, of the reduction in global demand during this developing recession. As Indian buyers are showing already, we won’t have to wait till December for that.
Russia is screwed.
If the West really wanted to screw Russia it would crack down on oil and LNG tankers owned by western companies carrying Russian product. I’m not sure we need to do that… but Russia and China and the Saudis just don’t own enough ships to remotely make up the difference.