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Post: Freed from sanctions: Europe sticks to Russian oil

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MOSCOW, January 25 – RIA Novosti, Natalia Dembinskaya. The West has loudly rejected oil from Russia, but is buying it, bypassing its own bans. The British were the first to “stop” imports and immediately arrange deliveries according to various gray schemes. In winter, they found a new one: black gold flowed into them from Indian refineries. Oil mixtures, of which the lion’s share is occupied by Russian raw materials, are bought by almost all of Europe.

“No stranger to hypocrisy”

London placed an embargo on gold in July, coal in August, and oil in December. So, if in 2021 the UK bought Russian oil products for about $600 million, by June 2022 imports had stopped completely. However, as it soon became clear, only in words.

After analyzing the data of an automated supertanker tracker, Greenpeace reported: From January to July, oil was imported into the country from Russia for $ 275 million.

“The British government is no stranger to hypocrisy: promising ‘all-round support’ to Ukraine and receiving almost two million barrels of Russian raw materials is too much, even by Boris Johnson’s standards,” analysts said.

The Sunday Times also wrote about it. Tankers came from the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Poland, but the oil was Russian. Officially, the law has not been violated: in Britain the country of origin is considered the importer, not the manufacturer.

Parliamentarians called for the gap to be closed. Ian Duncan Smith, leader of the Conservatives, said: “Who knows how many raw materials have entered the market with the wrong label and have bypassed sanctions as a result. We must act and put an end to this once and for all.”

New system

We talked and forgot. And now a new schema has been added. Britain has increased deliveries from Jamnagar, the world’s largest oil refinery on the west coast of India. The raw materials there are from Russia.

New Delhi and Beijing have become Moscow’s largest trading partners. Since February, India has increased its purchases of Russian oil 36-fold, from 30,000 to 1.08 million barrels per day, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). China – up to 830 thousand. Total fuel flow to Asia tripled to 2.5 million. China and India accounted for 68 percent of offshore crude oil shipments from Russia, according to S&P Global Commodities at Sea. “Asian giants almost completely swallowed European barrels,” experts said.

every fifth barrel

According to commodity analytics platform Kpler, in 2022 the Jamnagar refinery received 215 batches of oil and fuel oil from Russia, four times more than in 2021.

The UK has purchased around ten million barrels of diesel and other petroleum products from Jamnagar. In 2021 there were only four. The flow has intensified especially since the embargo was introduced in December.

It is not possible to determine exactly how much oil is flowing around the sanctions. Refineries tend to mix the raw material. But in general, the picture is absolutely clear.

“Previously, Indian refineries rarely used Russian oil. Now it’s around one in five barrels,” says Wood Mackenzie experts. He predicts that soon almost all diesel fuels will be like this.

“bait” in Russian

The Telegraph notes that British buyers have replaced direct imports with indirect ones and continue to support the Russian oil industry.

In Kiev this is extremely dissatisfied. As Oleg Ustenko, adviser to the President of Ukraine, said, British companies “take advantage of the weaknesses of the sanctions regime”, all deviations must be curbed.

However, experts point out that it is impossible and useless to demand this from countries closely interested in oil imports.

The West is powerless here: Russian supply is crucial for the world market, emphasizes Facts Global Energy.

ends in water

The companies made sure to carefully check the origin of the raw materials. Shell, for example, is “of course” trying to avoid “fuel that may contain something from Russia”.

BP has “very strict procedures and controls to enforce sanctions”. Certificates of origin are required from each counterparty.

But even before the embargo, experts warned that it was pointless. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.

“The documents can be arranged so that you will not find anything. The easiest way: we load the Russian ESPO on tankers, we approach an Indian ship where oil from the Middle East is already there. We mix it: Saudi 70 percent, our – 30. And we send more. To check. work”, explains Leonid Khazanov, an independent industry expert.

for all tastes

Similar mixtures were tried all over Europe. Shell was particularly happy to purchase such raw materials last spring. The traders called it “Latvian” because the “blend” was prepared in the port of Ventspils.

There are also historical precedents. Thus sanctions Iranian and Venezuelan oil was sold in the Far East as a mixture of “Malaysia” or “Singapore”.

Now, according to Bloomberg, Russian materials dominate in “Singapore”. The island city-state is the most important international center for the extraction of hydrocarbons from Western prohibitions.

According to consulting firm Miyabi Industries, traders lease bulk onshore storage tanks and floating offshore storage facilities in Singapore. Russian oil is mixed with other grades and re-exported to third countries.

According to the analytical company Vortexa, Singapore’s terminals accepted twice as much Russian raw materials and fuel oil in December than a year ago. The blended petroleum products then go to Northeast Asia and from there to Europe. With price increases, but “cleared from sanctions.”

Source: Ria

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