#Russian crude oil

[just2bruce]

Dark fleets and Sanctions

We now have two worlds of international commerce, as a result of trade wars and the Ukraine-Russia conflict. As the Western world, principally the EU, UK and related countries and the US look to tighten sanctions on Russian oil exports, some shipowners are finding creative ways to get around the rules set by the West. One important escape hatch is to flag ships with a Flag State that doesn’t…

[gazetteweekly]

“Oil Prices Slip on Increased Russian Supply and Jet Fuel Caution”

Oil prices faced a dip on Tuesday, driven by various factors including the anticipation of heightened supply from Russia and cautious trading ahead of the Federal Reserve’s decision on U.S. interest rates.

The Brent crude oil futures contract for May delivery edged down by 15 cents to $86.74 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) prices saw a decline of 14 cents to $82.02. Additionally, the WTI April contract, set to expire tomorrow, also fell by 15 cents to $82.57.

The previous session witnessed both benchmarks reaching four-month highs, propelled by lower crude exports from major producers like Saudi Arabia and Iraq, coupled with signs of robust demand and economic growth in China and the U.S.

However, concerns over Russian supply persisted, attributed to increased exports following Ukrainian attacks on the country’s oil infrastructure. Analysts from JP Morgan noted potential reductions in Russian crude runs due to these attacks, which could lead to higher crude oil exports as a result.

Russia’s decision to boost oil exports through its western ports in March further added pressure on prices. Daily shipments are expected to increase by 10% compared to the initial plan for March.

Uncertainty loomed over U.S. interest rates, with the Federal Reserve meeting scheduled for March 20. This uncertainty contributed to cautious trading, with analysts awaiting signals on rate cuts from the meeting.

Meanwhile, analysts expressed some caution regarding demand growth in the jet fuel sector ahead of the summer travel season. While global jet fuel prices are anticipated to rise, a potential global economic slowdown could temper consumption and limit price upside.

Overall, the oil market remains influenced by a delicate balance of supply dynamics, geopolitical tensions, and economic factors, highlighting the volatility inherent in the energy sector.

[head-post]

Oil and gas revenues replenish Russian treasury in February despite sanctions

Russia’s oil and gas revenues rose more than 80 per cent in February from a year earlier to more than $10 billion thanks to higher oil prices as its producers withstood Western sanctions, Bloomberg reports.

The Finance Ministry said on Tuesday that budget revenues from oil and gas taxes totalled 945.6 billion rubles ($10.4 billion) last month. Taxes on oil and petroleum products, which account for 84 per cent of all hydrocarbon revenues, more than doubled, according to Bloomberg calculations.

Oil taxes were based on an average price of $65 a barrel for Urals crude, Russia’s main export blend, up from $50 a year ago.

Russia’s oil and gas sectors are a key source of revenue for state coffers, which are under pressure from rising costs related to the military conflict in Ukraine and defence spending.

Read more HERE

[xtruss]

“War Criminal, Hypocrite, Hegemonic, Two-Faced, Liar, Conspirator and Fake Democracy Preacher United States” Reopens Ports to Russian Oil Despite Sanctions

The United States has imported Russian oil for the first time since April 2022. The imports, totaling 36,800 barrels in October and 9,900 barrels in November, were conducted for $2.7 million and $749,500, respectively.

The US imposed a ban on the import of oil, gas, and other energy resources from Russia in March 2022 as part of sanctions related to Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine. Нowever, specific licenses from the US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) have now made such imports possible.

According to the data, the US purchased Russian oil for consumption in both October and November. At the same time, one barrel of Russian oil cost the US $74 in October and $76 the following month. This is significantly higher than the "price cap" set by the country at $60 per barrel.

In 2022, the US, along with other G7 countries, the EU, Switzerland, and Australia, implemented price ceilings on Russian oil to reduce Moscow's income. Companies from these nations were prohibited from providing transportation, insurance, and financial services for Russian oil sold above the set limit of $60 per barrel. The price ceilings for petroleum products vary by type, with diesel capped at $100 per barrel and discounted fuel oil at $45 per barrel.

— Thursday January 11, 2024 | Sputnik International

[shreemetalprices]

Pakistan has made first order for discount Russian crude oil as part of a new agreement reached among Islamabad and Moscow.

[livemintvideos]

Russia's crude oil export to India surged to a new record in December 2022. Moscow has remained the top oil supplier of India for consecutive months. According to data from energy cargo tracker Vortexa, India imported crude oil from Russia 1 million barrels per day for the first time in December. Russia supplied 1.19 million bpd of crude oil to India in December alone. As per Vortexa report, it was the higher than 909,403 bpd of crude oil India imported from Russia in November and 935,556 bpd in October 2022. In this video, let's take a look at some of the causes that led to the increase in imports that we have seen.

[zvaigzdelasas]

Oil is on track to be the largest export item for the United States this year for the first time in history, highlighting the growing influence of U.S. oil production and exports on the global oil market. Rising U.S. crude oil production in recent years and growing exports after the ban was lifted in 2015 have made U.S. oil an increasingly important commodity on the market, especially after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the ban and sanctions on Russian crude in the West.

U.S. oil supply offset some of the OPEC+ cuts in the first half of this year as it is set for record-high production in 2023 and 2024.

16 Oct 23

[samueldays]

You said you don't believe in democracy. How do you believe society should work?

It should work well.

Ha ha only serious; I imagine one of the things going wrong is that targeting a form of governance as such wastes a lot of energy with 1) people trying to solve problems by doubling down on the form, 2) ruleslawyers hiding behind the form.

I don't have a fully worked out theory, I lean anarcho-monarchist, I don't think I need a fully worked out theory to observe that democracy on That Island 1) thoroughly failed to deliver on its repeated promise, 2) was unashamed by failing to deliver. It's on an island, damn it. Immigration control should be absolutely trivial there.

Labour promised reduced immigration, Labour didn't deliver, the people voted out Labour and voted in Conservative which promised reduced immigration, Conservative didn't deliver either, and so on, for five elections in a row.

"but what if the king was terrible" - what, are you suggesting the king might respond to repeated gang-rape slave-ring scandals by importing more stormtroopers from Rapeslaveland? 🙄

"but historical monarchies sucked" - yeah, they sucked because they were mostly pre-electricity. Metapolitical opinion: almost everything good of the past thousand years was produced by, putting it crudely, techbros. Electricity, petroleum, the steam engine, the cotton gin, the tractor, the Haber-Bosch process, the mechanical loom, the crane, and so on. We live well mostly because of automation machines and cheap energy, and government form is secondary.

Activists and reformers are sometimes redistributing the benefits of machines, sometimes they're making things worse, as we see today with "environmentalists" spending the last few decades blocking nuclear power that would be both clean and cheap. The batshit insane German Green Party even voted to shut down a nuclear power plant that was already running.

Then, because energy is fungible, winters are cold, and relying on Russian oil supply sucks, Germany had to re-open a previously closed coal power plant. Way to protect the planet, Greens! 🙄

[darkmaga-retard]

When the Department of Energy announced that it had successfully replenished the nation's stockpile with the total purchased volume of 40 million barrels, the announcement had some people scratching their heads. 

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), as the stockpile is called, contained over 630 million barrels of crude oil when President Biden took office in January 2021. Last week, it had less than 376 million barrels. How did the DOE refill the SPR with only 40 million barrels? 

“I think it's a very purposely worded, misleading press release to make it seem like it replenished the SPR. And that's not true at all,” Robert Rapier, a chemical engineer and editor in chief of Shale Magazine, told Just the News.

The July press release announced that the DOE had awarded a contract for the purchase of 4.65 million barrels of crude oil for the SPR, bringing the total amount of oil purchased for its refilling to 43.25 million barrels.

“On top of the 140 million barrels of oil secured by working with Congress to cancel previously-mandated sales, this brings the total purchased or kept in the SPR since 2022 to 180 million barrels – the full amount sold following the unprecedented Russian war against Ukraine,” the DOE release stated. 

[mariacallous]

Crude oil has stopped flowing to Hungary and Slovakia through the Druzhba pipeline after Kyiv tightened its economic sanctions against Russia.

Kyiv announced in June it would tighten its sanctions regime in mid-July by preventing Russia’s second-biggest oil company, Lukoil, from using its infrastructure to export crude to Europe.

The stoppage concerns only Lukoil deliveries through the southern stretch of the Duzhba (‘Friendship’) pipeline, which runs through Ukraine to the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. Authorities in both Bratislava and Budapest said Russian crude deliveries from other suppliers were unaffected, including those transiting Ukraine.

“According to data from [Slovakian oil transporter] Transpetrol, deliveries of Russian oil to Slovakia were not stopped,” Slovakia’s Ministry of Economy said in a statement on Thursday. “The problem is, according to [Slovakian refiner] Slovnaft, deliveries of a concrete supplier, Lukoil.”

The Ministry said it was discussing the issue with its partners in Ukraine and that in the meantime Slovnaft had secured supplies from another source.

On Tuesday, Hungary’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, said that while oil was flowing to Hungary from the Black Sea via the TurkStream Pipeline, Lukoil supplies via Ukraine had ceased.

“Due to a legal situation in Ukraine, Lukoil is no longer delivering to Hungary, and now we are working on a solution that would allow oil transit to restart as Russian oil is very important for our energy security,” Szijjarto said.

Industry sources cited by Reuters said crude supplies to the Czech Republic were flowing normally.

[clouds-of-wings]

Finally some relevant advertising! I've been agonizing over my Russian crude oil transports all week.

Bonus, the image that looks like something nostalgebraist-autoresponder would have generated in 2022.

[tomorrowusa]

Ukraine is hitting Russia where it hurts – in its fossil fuel industry.

Ukrainian drones have attacked several oil refineries in Russia, hundreds of kilometres from the frontline in regions including Ryazan, Nizhny Novgorod and Leningrad. The continuing attacks are part of a strategy to hurt Russia’s economy. The Ryazan oil refinery, Rosneft’s biggest refinery, was set ablaze, a regional governor said on Wednesday. It shut down two damaged primary oil refining units. Rosneft did not comment. The plant handles about 5.8% of Russia’s total refined crude, according to industry sources. A fire broke out at Norsi, Russia’s fourth-largest refinery, after a Ukrainian drone attack, Russian officials said on Tuesday. Its main crude distillation unit was damaged, which means that at least half of the refinery’s production is halted, according to industry sources. Norsi handles nearly 6% of Russia’s total refined crude. Before the latest drone attack, one of its two catalytic crackers had already been put out of action. The governor of the Leningrad region, Alexander Drozdenko, said a Ukrainian drone targeted the Kirishi refinery. It is one of the top two refineries in Russia, handling 6.4% of Russia’s capacity, according to industry sources. And the Novoshakhtinsk export oil refinery in Russia’s southern Rostov region had to suspend operations on Wednesday after a drone attack.

Russia's economy is about the same size as that of Italy which has maybe 40% as many people as Russia. And much of that economy is centered on fossil fuels. Putin and his oligarch buddies skim off graft to enrich themselves; those superyachts, palaces, and prime real estate properties abroad are all ultimately paid for by countries which import Russian oil and gas. Meanwhile, Russians outside the big cities live in poverty; imagine a 1920s standard of living but with censored internet and state TV.

Ukraine is doing the climate a big favor by indirectly encouraging importers of Russian fossil fuels to look for cleaner replacements.

Some other bits of good news for Ukraine...

EU agrees to €5 billion boost in Ukraine military aid

European Union member states agreed Wednesday to provide Ukraine with an additional  €5 billion ($5.5 billion) in military aid. Belgium, which holds the EU's rotating presidency, said ambassadors from the bloc's 27 nations had agreed "in principle" on the plan to support arms supplies to Kyiv in 2024.  The contribution of €5 billion will go on EU-managed fund called the European Peace Facility. The fund operates as a giant cashback scheme, giving EU members refunds for sending munitions to other countries. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called it a "powerful and timely demonstration of European unity."

White House announces $300 million military aid package for Ukraine

With new aid for Ukraine stalled in Congress since December, the White House on Tuesday announced it had cobbled together another $300 million in military assistance to use as a stopgap measure. "The package includes munitions and rounds to help Ukraine hold the line against Russia's brutal attacks for the next couple of weeks,” President Joe Biden said in a meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Donald Tusk at the White House, adding, "we must act before it literally is too late.” National security adviser Jake Sullivan detailed the package at White House briefing, saying that the aid comes as Ukraine "does not have enough ammunition to fire back." "So today, on behalf of President Biden, I'm announcing an emergency package of security assistance of $300 million worth of weapons and equipment to address some of Ukraine's pressing needs," Sullivan said.

French National Assembly approves bilateral security agreement with Ukraine

The 10-year security pact with Ukraine includes commitments by Paris to deliver more arms, train soldiers and send up to 3 billion euros ($3.2 billion) in military aid to Ukraine in 2024. Macron has also adopted a tougher stance towards Russia, urging Ukraine's allies to urgently do more. He also did not rule out the presence of Western troops in Ukraine which has created a backlash among some Ukrainian officials had told Reuters they were worried that a vote not overwhelmingly in favour of Kyiv would be negative symbolically and could hurt President Emmanuel Macron's efforts to ramp up his country's support in the coming months.

AOC says Democrats must take advantage of ‘razor-thin’ House margin after Ken Buck steps down

In an unexpected Tuesday evening announcement, Mr Buck — a Republican from Colorado — said he would leave Congress next Friday, rather than retiring at the end of his term as originally planned. Afterwards, Republicans will hold just 218 seats out of 435 in the House, leaving Democrats one step closer to clinching the majority. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York and member of the progressive Squad, told The Independent her party must take advantage of Mr Buck’s early departure. Ms Ocasio-Cortez said Democrats “have to make sure that that we see that do the best we can to navigate how razor-thin the situation is.”

That last item is rather interesting. Ken Buck, a never-Trump Republican, is stepping down early. His seat in a deep red district will be vacant until late June when a special election is likely to take place. His departure will leave the House GOP (for now) with 218 seats – the bare minimum for a majority. This will make it easier for Democrats to persuade several remaining anti-Putin Republicans to defy Speaker "MAGA Mike" Johnson's wishes and support President Biden's aid package for Ukraine.

[head-post]

Russia, Saudi Arabia and several OPEC+ producers extend crude supply cuts

OPEC+ has extended oil supply cuts until mid-year to prevent a global glut and support prices.

The new restrictions, which on paper amount to about 2 million barrels a day, will be in place until the end of June, according to statements from members such as Saudi Arabia, which accounts for half of the promised cuts. Russia has promised to step up its role by focusing on cutting production rather than exports.

Traders and analysts had widely expected an extension of the agreement, believing it was needed to offset a seasonal lull in global fuel consumption and surging production from several OPEC+ rivals, most notably US shale drillers. The need for caution is reinforced by the uncertain economic outlook in China.

Ample supplies have kept global oil prices near the $80 a barrel mark this year, even as conflict in the Middle East weighs heavily on regional shipping. While that brings some relief to consumers after years of rampant inflation, prices may be too low for many members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its partners.

Read more HERE

[ohsalome]

While Petkov, who was Bulgarian prime minister at the outbreak of the war, was attempting to pull the country in a more westward, pro-NATO trajectory, he had to grapple with intense blowback from pro-Kremlin politicians, including among his coalition partners, the Socialists, who are the successors to the old Communist Party. He even had to fire his own defense minister for parroting Russia’s spin on the war. In public, at least, Petkov sought to play down any idea that Bulgaria — despite considerable stocks of Soviet-era weaponry — would step up and arm Ukraine.

“We estimate that about a third of the ammunition needed by the Ukrainian army in the early phase of the war came from Bulgaria,” Petkov told WELT.

Just as sensitively, the diesel that Bulgaria supplied to Ukraine was processed from Russian crude oil at a Black Sea refinery, which at the time belonged to the Russian company Lukoil. “Bulgaria became one of the largest exporters of diesel to Ukraine and at times covered 40 percent of Ukraine’s needs,” former Finance Minister Vassilev told WELT.

It did not escape the Kremlin’s attention that Bulgaria, under Petkov and Vassilev, was making massive efforts on behalf of Ukraine. Starting as early as May, Moscow bombarded his country with cyberattacks, Petkov said. These hit the power supply and post offices, and at times pensions for civil servants could not be paid. Moscow also tried to bribe deputies and infiltrate the authorities. Between March and June, Bulgaria expelled some 70 staff from the Russian embassy in Sofia for spying.

[shreemetalprices]

https://www.shreemetalprices.com/pakistan-buys-first-order-of-russian-crude-oil-for-discount/