A ceasefire to the Russia-Ukraine war could be bearish for oil prices if Trump pushes for the removal of sanctions on the Russian energy industry, Tyler Richey, co-editor at Sevens Report Research, told MarketWatch. Geopolitical stability may also “largely extinguish the still simmering ‘fear bid’ in the oil market.” Sanctions by the Biden administration roughly tripled the number of directly sanctioned Russian crude oil tankers, enough to affect around 900,000 barrels per day (bpd). Whereas it’s highly likely that Russia will try to circumvent the sanctions by employing even more shadow fleet tankers and ship-to-ship transfers, StanChart sees 500,000 bpd of displacements over the next six months.
