Posted on 12/29/2023 10:48:14 AM PST by Mount Athos
Russia's position in the global oil market remains largely undiminished heading into 2024 despite Western sanctions and a price cap of $60 per barrel, with a little help from China and India.
The Kremlin's counter-tactic of diverting oil cargoes from Europe to what it describes as friendly countries in Asia has been hugely successful.
Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said:
"The main partners in the current situation are China, whose share (of our exports) has grown to approximately 45-50%, and, of course, India. Earlier, there were basically were no supplies to India. In two years, the total share of supplies to India has come to 40%,"
Novak added that Europe's share of Russia's crude exports had fallen to only about 4-5% from about 40-45%.
The West's $60 per barrel price cap is also appearing farcical with both Indian and Chinese buyers paying significantly above the figure. On average, prices paid Russia's Urals crude have recently ranged between $4-$6 per barrel discounts to Brent prices currently shy of $80.
Sources in Indian trading circles suggest that at points of supply stress over the course of 2023, the discount even fell to as low as $3 per barrel from levels as high as $19 at the start of the year.
Under the price cap, Western tanker operators and insurers have been barred from offering services for vessels carrying Russian oil that trades at a premium to $60. However, Russia has proven itself to be deft at accessing a large fleet of non-G7 or European Union insured, shadow tankers.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Vlad gets the last laugh...
GloboHomoTrannyPedoNazis and Zeepers Hardest Hit!
“David O’Sullivan, the European Union’s special envoy for the implementation of sanctions, met with Kazakh officials in Astana on November 28 and said the Central Asian nation had significantly reduced the reexport of dual-purpose goods to Russia but increased other exports to its northern neighbor.”
https://www.rferl.org/a/kazakhstan-reexports-dual-purpose-items-russia/32703566.html
The site has several articles of possible interest concerning Russia and associated nations.
The following article was found on America hating, marxist loving, fake news Master Yahoo News today clearly belying Forbes.
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Payment issues have caused delays in shipments of Russian Sokol crude oil to India, forcing Indian Oil Corp (IOC) to purchase more oil from the Middle East, Reuters reported Dec. 26, citing sources close to the matter.
IOC is India’s largest refinery, and the only state-owned refinery with an annual contract to buy varieties of Russian grades, including Sokol, from the Russian oil giant Rosneft.
According to shipping data, IOC was set to receive six shipments of Sokol from late November to December, but those cargoes were not delivered. One of the tankers, the NS Century, was sanctioned by the U.S. on Nov. 16.
While the NS Century is bound for Singapore, the other shipments remain floating off the coasts of India and Sri Lanka.
“The supplier has an intent to deliver crude oil. Hopefully a solution will be found soon,” one source told Reuters.
They’re both correct. Russia sold a huge amount of oil to India for their Rupee currency, but Russia has very big problems using it as fast as it comes in, so huge amounts are sitting in Indian banks.
Vlad gets the last laugh...
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.....on his way to the bank.
Communism
Doesn’t work
Liberals
Keep evolving - trying
Payment issues, not supply issues.
Russia needs to start buying stuff from India. I suppose either electronics, or start opening 7-11s in Russia.
I’m no expert on the ruble but articles like the following are plentiful. This one was from the Dallas Fed.
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Russian ruble buckles under trade sanctions, declining export earnings ...
Oct 10, 2023 October 10, 2023 Russia’s currency is losing value, falling 40 percent against the U.S. dollar since December 2022. To stabilize the currency, the Russian central bank held an emergency meeting in August and raised interest rates from 7.5 percent to 11 percent.
Yep.
Anyone who thought Russia would not be able to sell their oil is delusional or dumb.
At this point, claims that the Ruble is rising or falling relative to the dollar are meaningless since the Ruble no longer freely operates in the dollar zone.
Something Western politicians have failed to realize is that expecting India to cooperate with the West is futile. India and Indians still want revenge for the Raj, as an ex-pat from Goa explained to me over 20 years ago.
“Russia Heads Into 2024 Making A Mockery Of Western Oil Sanctions”
The rest of the world Heads Into 2024 Making A Mockery Of the Biden administration
There, fixed it
REFL is run by the US government and is used to disseminate all kinds of propaganda.
Not saying this is the case in the article you linked, but REFL is not the ‘independent’ media outlet it tries to pretend it is.
“To stabilize the currency, the Russian central bank held an emergency meeting in August and raised interest rates from 7.5 percent to 11 percent.”
Since then, they have raised their interest rate to 16%.
“On average, prices paid Russia’s Urals crude have recently ranged between $4-$6 per barrel discounts to Brent prices currently shy of $80.”
Not true. Current discount to Brent is more like $15 They have been getting around the $60 price cap for Urals all through December, and continue facing increasing expenses.
https://oilprice.com/oil-price-charts/#prices
They did better briefly on the discount to Brent during a price surge in August to November (like around $10), especially the peak in September and October where they briefly got around $80/barrel, but those days are gone. The normal discount throughout this year (2023), has run about $20, and often more. Any period where the discount to Brent was just $4-6 would have been vanishingly brief, and it is likely deliberately misleading to present it as such.
Today (29 Dec 2023):
Brent $77.04
Urals $61.53
Discount = $15.49
All that discount, on all those barrels, all year long; is revenue lost to Russia due to sanctions.
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