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Is Von Der Leyen Preparing for Sanctions? Russia and traders ready to circumvent them. The wall of ridicule has been overcome

Today the president of the European Commission, and queen of tight sweaters, Ursula Von Der Leyen, has officially announced that the Union will ban Russian oil and its derivatives. A "painful move, but it must be done", even if minimizing the impact on economies and markets.

Meanwhile, India is buying oil at a discounted price from Russia and the large international trading companies are preparing to circumvent the blockade, with the help of those who do their job, that is the economy. Vi t ol Group, the world's largest independent oil trader, is shipping the first ever shipment of Russia's ESPO (i.e. East Siberian) crude blend to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Reuters reported Wednesday.

On Tuesday, May 3, the oil tanker Kriti Breeze loaded 740,000 barrels of Russian ESPO crude into the port of Kozmino in the Russian Far East, according to data from Refinitiv, Vortexa and Kpler cited by Reuters.

According to the positioning data of the MarineTraffic oil tanker, the Kriti Breeze, flying the flag of Liberia, has already departed from Kozmino and is bound for the port of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates, with an arrival date scheduled for 25 May. Russia usually sells its ESPO crude blend to North Asian refineries, but this time it sends it to Gulf refineries, in a country that maintains relations with it.

Apparently the cargo has a “ very creative contract and the FOB discounts (ie on the price per cargo) have to be huge for it to work ,” he said. In this way oil avoids Japan and South Korea who have self-sanctioned Russia by virtue of their proximity to Washington.

Obviously, a vote in the Emirates for this crude oil could happen two things:

  • be refined and then sent, in the form of distillates (diesel, petrol, kerosene) to Europe, which now imports from this area;
  • be mixed with Emirati oil, less than 50%, and then sent to European refineries.

Obviously the largest profit will remain in the Emirates or in the hands of traders and refiners, and we do not believe that the EU can afford to sanction the Emirates … Vitol, who is based in Switzerland, has promised to stop dealing with Russian oil by the end of the year, but, meanwhile, the coffers are filled. Then maybe a new company will be born, let's call it “Svitol”, maybe with the same partners, which will handle all these loads.

But European tight sweaters will be satisfied …


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Does the article Von Der Leyen prepare for sanctions? Russia and traders ready to circumvent them. The wall of ridicule is overcome comes from ScenariEconomici.it .


This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/von-der-leyen-si-prepara-alle-sanzioni-russia-e-commercianti-gia-pronti-ad-aggirarle-il-muro-del-ridicolo-e-superato/ on Wed, 04 May 2022 17:16:38 +0000.