Page 91 - RusRPTMar23

virus restrictions,” Bloomberg reported. “Crude and condensate flows rose to 1.52mn barrels a day, just short of a record set almost three years ago,” the agency reported.
Russia’s coal exports to China through the Zabaikalsk–Manchuria border crossing point soared by 214% on the year to 438,000 tonnes in the period from January 1 through February 9, the Consulate General of Russia in Harbin said in a statement on February 27.
Russian and Belarusian mineral fertilizers worth UAH 100M were seized in a Ukrainian Seaport. The court seized a bulk shipment of mineral fertilizers of Russian and Belarusian production, with a total value of almost UAH 100M ($2.7M). The products were found in 170 wagons in the Mykolaiv seaport, which is part of the business structure of the sanctioned oligarch Dmytro Firtash. The total volume of the seized property is 11,800 tons. The fertilizer arrived in Ukraine even before the beginning of the Russian full-scale invasion and was in the transit state. The cargo belonged to two foreign companies - Uralkali and Belaruskali. According to the SBU, the product owners planned to sell it and receive millions of dollars in profits, part of which, in the form of taxes, would finance the war against Ukraine.
The growth of Russia’s domestic coal consumption in 2022 allowed offsetting a decrease in exports, while this year coal supplies from the country to foreign markets may be expected to go down by 8-10%, Finam analyst Alexey Kalachev suggests. Earlier, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said that coal exports from Russia fell by 7.6% in 2022, while deliveries to the domestic market rose by 6.8%. Starting from August 10, 2022, Europe introduced an embargo on supplies of Russian coal. Previously, supplies to Europe accounted for slightly less than one quarter of Russia’s coal exports, the expert noted. Russia has to redistribute around 46mn tonnes per year of thermal coal abandoned by EU countries, and another 37mn tonnes per year if Japan, South Korea and Taiwan join the embargo, Kalachev said. Among the promising regions with growing coal energy generation, the expert mentioned Africa and particularly Southeastern Asia, adding that China imported around 290mn tonnes of coal last year, with almost 6.5% of its demand covered by supplies from abroad. "According to preliminary figures, China’s imports of Russian coal surged by 31% in one year to 69.5mn tonnes," he said. Russia’s deliveries to India preliminarily soared 3.5-fold to 8.4mn tonnes, the analyst added.
5.2.2 Current account dynamics
In the second half of 2022 imports bounced back strongly from their collapse in March-June, when they had fallen by more than one third. In December, $22.9bn in imports essentially means a return to pre-invasion (January-February) numbers. In line with our results, the CBR reported a sharp fall in the current account surplus—from an all-time high of $78.5bn in Q2 to $48.0bn in Q3 and $31.4bn inQ4. December was particularly weak with a surplus of only $4.1bn, the lowest monthly reading since the pandemic year of
91 RUSSIA Country Report March 2023 www.intellinews.com