Despite multiple restrictions and sanctions from different countries targeting Russian oil, its supplies continue to find their way to the global oil markets.
Russia’s seaborne oil exports, which have been targeted by sanctions and price caps, jumped to an all-time high of about 4 million barrels per day in March.
The export data is consistent with the statements of the Russian Energy Minister, who confirmed that his country was able to successfully redirect all of its oil exports targeted by Western sanctions.
Energy-hungry Asian markets were the first target for Russian oil exports, which played an alternative role to Western markets.
Russian oil exports to India have grown 22-fold over the past year.
Russia’s oil exports to China also doubled, but to a lesser extent.
The growth of Russian oil exports to Asia did not include only India and China. Japan, a G7 country that set a ceiling on Russian oil prices, got an exception from Washington to keep its imports of Russian oil, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Question marks are being raised about the feasibility of Western restrictions, especially after the International Energy Agency announced that the restrictions on Russian oil are bearing fruit, as Russia’s energy revenues fell by about 45 percent during the first quarter of this year.
Is China repeating Europe’s mistake in relying on Russian energy?
However, Moscow is still able to deliver its supplies of oil to the market, at prices that sometimes exceed the price ceiling.
However, will Asian countries, especially China and India, repeat the same crisis in which Europe fell, represented in increasing its dependence on Russian oil? Or is what is happening an “opportunistic opportunity”?
Anas Al-Hajji, an editorial advisor on the energy platform, believes that India’s tendency to increase its dependence on Russian oil is an opportunistic opportunity for lower prices, saying that India has been behaving in this way for years.
He said that India has greatly increased its imports from Russia to about two million barrels per day of Russian oil, but it came at the expense of US oil exports to India, which decreased from half a million barrels to about 100,000 barrels only.
However, Beijing’s situation is “strange”, according to Al-Hajji, who believes that laying new pipelines between China and Russia indicates that the former is in the process of increasing its dependence on Russian energy sources, but it is largely trying to maintain supplies from the Gulf countries despite its efforts to increase its dependence on energy sources. Russian.
Al-Hajji pointed out that there are historical differences between China and Russia, which means that the current situation is “strange,” as he put it.
