Page 155 - RusRPTApr23

sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine cut the country off from its European markets, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said March 28. “Most of our energy resources have been redirected to other, friendlier markets,” Interfax quoted Novak as saying. “If we look at oil supplies to India, they increased 22 times last year,” he said at a Russian Energy Ministry meeting. “Supplies to the People’s Republic of China and other markets have also grown. This is also the result of the great work that has been done in the industry,” Novak added.
The shadow fleet for Russian oil is replenished with dozens of tankers every month. The number of ships involved amounts to approximately 25-35 every month. According to CNN, approximately 600 tankers (10% of the global market) are generally used to transport Russian oil. Experts divide vessels transporting Russian oil into "grey" and "dark” ships. Gray ships sold products from EU owners to firms in the Middle East and Asia after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Dark ships belong to Iranian and Venezuelan companies. In most cases, "dark ships" disable their automatic identification system, which allows vessels to be identified, their dimensions, and route, making tracking almost impossible. Even though Western countries have banned nearly all imports of Russian oil, foreign ships are not prohibited from delivering it to buyers. It is noted that European-owned vessels accounted for 36% of the volume of Russian oil trade transactions in January.
Share of Greek oil tankers taking oil out of Russia fell to 40% in Feb '23
from a peak 61% in Apr '22 (blue). That's due to Greek shipping oligarchs selling their old clunkers to Putin for his shadow fleet (grey).
According to Chinese customs data, Beijing's spending on Russian energy, including coal, crude oil, natural gas, and products, increased to $88bn in the 12 months up to February. This surge in spending has come as other buyers have avoided Russian exports due to the ongoing war. Comparing this with the previous year's data, Beijing spent $57bn, representing a considerable increase in spending.
Furthermore, the import data from this period indicates that Russia has now become China's primary supplier of crude, surpassing Saudi Arabia. Additionally, it has become China's second-largest source of coal, with Indonesia being the largest, and the third-largest source of liquefied natural gas, trailing behind Australia and Qatar. Notably, this ranking does not include volumes of gas transported overland, which China stopped reporting at the beginning of last year.
The data also shows that crude imports from Russia have risen to 89.3mn tons since the Ukraine invasion, compared to 78.4mn tons in the preceding period, which has overtaken Saudi Arabia's 86.8mn tons. Furthermore, Chinese purchases of Russian LNG increased by 52% to 6.86mn tons, while coal imports rose by 33% to 76.4mn tons.
155 RUSSIA Country Report Russia April 2023 www.intellinews.com