Kerosene, gasoline, bitumen, fuel oil, diesel… Since this Sunday, February 5, almost a year following the start of the war in Ukraine, Russian refined petroleum products, exported by sea, can no longer enter the European area.
One million barrels supplied Europe every day before the war. This is the second measure decided by the European Union, following a first embargo on crude oil last December, with the aim of limiting the significant Russian resources from hydrocarbons.
According to Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, who was in kyiv this week, this package of sanctions, coupled with a cap on Russian barrel prices at €100 negotiated with the G7, penalizes Russia by “€160 million per day”.
Russia is a major oil producer, with an average daily production of eleven million barrels, five of which are exported every day in normal times. Europe alone bought a million before the start of the war, a figure that has fallen to 720,000 in recent months.
However, despite this sharp decline for nearly a year, more than a quarter of Europe’s diesel imports still came from Russia at the start of 2023, according to global tanker tracking data analyzed by S&P Global. . However, this fuel from the refining of crude oil remains the most widely used in European vehicles.
An effect at the pump?
The embargo might therefore automatically lead to a rise in prices at the pump, since European countries will quickly have to find other, more distant sources of supply on an already very tight market.
However, some countries have anticipated and started to build up stocks, particularly with the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
For its part, Russia will have to turn to new customers to sell its oil. Of these, India is already the country that has increased its supplies the most in recent months, going as far as buying 1.7 million barrels per day, but at a discount. This might limit the effects of the embargo, India refining part of the crude oil it imports… in order to then export it.
Michel-Édouard Leclerc, president of the strategic committee of E. Leclerc stores, thus indicated on RTL: We must now buy (oil) from traders who will perhaps pass on Indian diesel to us. We still have to check that it is not Russian diesel via India. “
Many experts believe, however, that India’s refining capacity remains limited. The spokesman for the Russian presidency, Dmitry Peskov, for his part highlighted that the European embargo would “further unbalance the international energy markets”, before assuring that Moscow will take “measures” to cover his interests. The other side of the war.
