Russia tries to attract oriental customers with better quality oil
Over the past two months, Russia has improved the quality of its flagship crude, Urals, making it lighter and "sweeter", meaning lower acidity, to make it even more palatable to Asian buyers, Reuters reported. . So Russia also acts on the product quality lever to attract new customers.
Urals was a key quality for export from Russian ports on the Baltic and Black Seas, and many volumes were destined for Europe prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Russia's oil exports are now leaning towards China and India, as Western buyers are moving away from the Russian product, ahead of an EU embargo on Russian oil imports by sea, which is expected to take place within eight months.
According to data provided by Reuters, over the past two months the Russian Urals have become slightly sweeter, with a lower sulfur content, and lighter, with a higher API severity number. This is very important for the reduction of refining costs.
According to Reuters sources, lower Russian demand for low-sulfur crude oil and reduced operations at refineries in southern Russia, relatively close to Ukraine, could be two of the reasons why the sweeter and lighter Urals is now coming. shipped from Russia for Asian exports.
Additionally, some fields producing heavier, higher-sulfur oil have reduced production following sanctions against Russia, which may have helped make the Urals softer and lighter, a trader told Reuters.
Improving the quality of the Urals could be an additional incentive for China and India to buy Russian oil, in addition to the steep discount the Russian product is offered. As of 23 June, the price of Urals was discounted by 35 dollars a barrel compared to Brent, the international benchmark.
Meanwhile, Russia is shipping larger volumes of crude oil to China and India, while the West avoids, bans and sanctions Russian oil and products.
Just a few months ago, India was a small and insignificant buyer of Russian oil. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the huge discounts attracted many Indian buyers.
Since April, Indian crude oil imports from Russia have increased more than 50 times to account for 10% of all Indian imports, a senior government official told Business Standard last week.
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The article Russia tries to attract oriental customers with better quality oil comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/la-russia-cerca-di-attirare-i-clienti-orientali-con-un-petrolio-di-qualita-migliore/ on Tue, 28 Jun 2022 08:00:38 +0000.