2023-09-26 13:08:00
The West’s price cap was actually intended to slow down Russian oil exports. But new calculations show that Russia actually ships more.
Russia has apparently managed to largely circumvent Western sanctions on oil and compensate for this through new trading markets. Russian oil shipments have increased by 50 percent this spring. Almost three quarters of the transports are carried out by sea – without Western insurance. This is reported by the Financial Times, citing data from the analysis company Kpler.
Oil is Putin’s main source of income
But Russia is apparently managing to sell its own oil closer to the international market price once more. The private Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) estimates that revenue from oil exports for Russia this year will be at least 15 billion euros higher than usual.
Oil sales are the largest source of income for the Russian budget. “Given these changes in the way Russia ships its oil, it might be very difficult to meaningfully enforce the price cap in the future,” Ben Hilgenstock, an economist at the KSE, told the Financial Times. “It is all the more regrettable that we did not do more to adequately enforce them when we had more influence.”
For a long time, Moscow was forced by the G7 price cap to sell its own oil below market value because it was dependent on exports. In total, Russia has lost $100 billion in revenue due to the sanctions since the outbreak of the war, the KSE calculated.
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