Despite European sanctions, Russia still exports more than 3 million barrels a day
Russian exports of crude oil by sea have held above 3 million barrels per day (bpd) for the past six weeks, following the entry into force of the EU ban on fuel imports from Russia and after Moscow said it plans to cut its production by 500,000 bpd, according to tanker tracking data compiled by Bloomberg .
In the week ending March 24, Russia's seaborne crude oil exports fell by 123,000 bpd but remained above the 3 million bpd mark at 3.11 million bpd, according to data cited by Bloomberg's Julian Lee .
While weekly shipments can be very volatile, tracking tankers over the six-week period to March 24 also showed a similar small decline in Russian shipments. This suggests that Russian crude oil exports have held up this year and that the voluntary production cut has not yet manifested itself in Russian crude oil exports to the global market.
Most of Russia's exports go to China, India or to "destinations unknown" in Asia, which, as history shows, usually means the cargoes end up at one of Asia's two largest crude importers. Russia was China's top supplier of crude oil in January and February, overtaking Saudi Arabia, which was China's top oil supplier last year.
As China accelerated its purchase of cheap Russian crude oil at discounts relative to international benchmarks, China's imports of crude oil from Russia increased by 23.8% year on year, reaching 1.94 million bpd at January and February 2023, according to data from China's General Administration of Customs cited by Reuters.
Russia, for its part, said last week that it would continue to cut crude oil production by 500,000 bpd through the end of June this year. Initially, Russia intended to cut the same amount of production in March.
“It remains to be seen whether there will be enough appetite for Russian oil products now that the price cap is in place or whether its production will start to decline under the weight of sanctions,” the International Energy Agency (IEA) said. in its March Oil Market Report.
If this were not the case, there would be a drop in prices and revenues for Moscow.
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The article Despite the European sanctions Russia still exports more than 3 million barrels a day comes from Scenari Economics .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/nonostante-le-sanzioni-europee-la-russia-esporta-ancora-piu-di-3-milioni-di-barili-al-giorno/ on Mon, 27 Mar 2023 15:59:01 +0000.