Page 20 - RusRPTJan23

2.8 Russian tanker deliveries of oil tumble in first week of oil embargo
In the first full week of the European oil embargo, offshore oil exports from Russia more than halved from 3.46mn to 1.6mn barrels per day, Bloomberg calculated in December.
A collapse of such a depth is the result of a combination of circumstances: repairs in a key export port were added to the sanctions. But so far, the figure proves that the embargo allowed oil sanctions to come into full force.
A complete ban on offshore deliveries of Russian oil to Europe came into force on 5 December. Bloomberg has been publishing detailed statistics on oil exports from Russia every Tuesday for several months. The wire summed up the results of the first full week of the embargo, from December 10 to 16 and tentatively found there a real collapse in deliveries. However, the wire warned that tanker statistics can be lumpy due to weather conditions and the variations in the booking schedule.
Compared to the previous week, offshore exports of crude oil from Russia fell from 3.46mn b / d to 1.6mn bpd - by 1.8mn bpd, that is, by 54%, or more than doubled. This is an absolute anomaly - so far the weekly low in 2022 was 2.4mn barrels per day, and on average 3.1mn b / d were exported. By the same 54%, according to Bloomberg estimates, the revenue of the Russian budget from the export duty on oil should have fallen.
Bloomberg urges to be careful with weekly data - they can distort the overall picture due to random factors: weather, tanker schedules, and even the quality of the signal of ship transmitters, on the basis of which data on their movement is collected. Moreover, one factor in the collapse, not related to sanctions, is known to be repairs at the main Baltic export port of Primorsk (now completed), due to which the port was able to send only three tankers, compared with an average for the year of eight.
But there are also signs that directly indicate that the fall is the result of sanctions. Oil loading at the main Far East export port, Kozmino, where there were no repairs, fell in the same way - from an average of eight tankers a week to two. The price ceiling set by the G7 could also come into play here: if Urals shipped from European ports is now trading below the ceiling ($55 per barrel against $60), then ESPO Far East oil is higher, at about $65. At least two of the largest shipping companies (one of them is the Chinese Cosco) removed their tankers from this route, and there was a shortage of ships on it, Bloomberg wrote on December 15. Shipments from Kozmino are likely to pick up next week, but the shortage of tankers is making them less stable.
The entry into force of the European embargo and the reduction in supplies from Russia have not yet affected world oil prices. A barrel of Brent continues to trade at $80, which is in line with the average monthly November price. Urals, which fell sharply in price ahead of the embargo, is being sold at a
20 RUSSIA Country Report January 2023 www.intellinews.com