A European official attending the G7 finance powwow in Banff, Canada, told Reuters that the U.S. Treasury team thinks market forces are already doing the heavy lifting. With Brent prices wobbling around $64—and Russia’s Urals blend clocking in at a $10 discount—Washington’s logic is that there’s no need to poke the bear when the bear’s already limping.
India is on track to import nearly 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil from Russia in May, which would be a 10-month high, according to vessel-tracking data by Kpler. Indian refiners have increased buying activity for lighter Russian grades, such as ESPO, showed the Kpler data cited by Reuters. The strong Indian imports […]
The UK urged its Group of Seven allies to agree a cut to the price cap on Russian oil, saying the move is necessary to put further pressure on President Vladimir Putin to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The EU’s plan to fully cut off Russian gas imports by 2027 faces legal, logistical and political hurdles.
Although the bloc has slashed Russian gas from 45% of its supply in 2021 to 19% in 2024, fully severing ties is proving difficult. Long-term contracts with companies such as TotalEnergies and Naturgy, lasting into the 2030s, are a major obstacle. Brussels is weighing “force majeure” clauses to exit these deals, but legal experts caution that without sanctions, such moves could spark costly arbitration.
Russia is considering changing its key budget-building mechanism in response to sliding oil revenue, in a sign the Kremlin expects crude prices will remain lower for longer while the war in Ukraine continues to drain state coffers.
Chinese demand also registered a decline in terms of LNG from state-run companies, with Bloomberg reporting that China re-exported over 280,000 tons of LNG in April to date, clocking in as the highest single-month re-export volume on record. The re-export volume represents nearly 8% of total imports for April.
Russia’s production drilling averaged more than 2,370 km (7.8 million feet) in January and February, according to the latest available data seen by Bloomberg. That’s higher than the seasonal average for the first three years of the Kremlin’s invasion in Ukraine, which triggered broad restrictions on the availability of western oilfield services in Russia, historical data show.
The current level of drilling activity is also some 30% higher than it was before the war in the Ukraine started, Bloomberg noted, in evidence of the resilience of Russia’s energy industry to Western sanctions. Some of these targeted specifically the oil and gas industry on the assumption that local producers would be crippled if access to Western technology and equipment was cut off.
Russia downgraded its outlook for exports this year and lowered expectations for the price for its oil, developments that may force the government to dip into its wealth fund to cover wartime spending.
The Economy Ministry forecast a 5.3% decline in exports to 410.6 billion rubles ($5 billion), down from an earlier projection of 445 billion rubles, the Interfax news service reported on Monday. The updated macroeconomic outlook also included a lower price for Urals oil of $56 a barrel, versus $69.70 seen earlier.
Unlike oil, the country’s natural gas strategy foresees a big hike in annual production. It targets 853 billion cubic meters by the end of the decade, up by more than a third from 2023. Output in 2050 is seen topping 1 trillion cubic meters, an increase that’s largely down to a ramp-up of liquefied natural gas.