Even though our sanctions regime against Russia specifically excludes oil and gas, energy traders are worried that Russia's crude oil shipments might suffer anyway. This has caused the price of Brent crude futures to soar, but not Russian oil futures:
In a sign that demand for Russian oil has evaporated, prices for the country’s flagship Urals crude moved in the opposite direction. Traders are offering Urals at massive discounts of around $15 a barrel below the price of Brent—and even then not finding buyers.
But wait:
As prices for Russian crude tanked last week, companies in India vacuumed up around seven million barrels of Urals oil, according to people familiar with the matter. Even there, however, companies are taking steps to limit sanctions risk. On Monday, Indian Oil Corp. sent a letter to crude traders stating it would buy Russian oil only if delivery was included....This was because some shipping companies are hesitant to load Russian crude, the person said.
India is not undermining the sanctions regime here, since there are no sanctions against crude oil. However, it's interesting that even though the Ukraine war has caused the price of global oil to go up, it's caused the price of Russian oil to go down. That's gonna hurt.
The letter at least…
Only because the price of oil is set by globalist elites. The real price should be set by the people. Not phoney traders. What a country can get, a country can set.
In trading for anything, there's a common concept called "discount for risk."
There it is, right out in the open, unmistakable even to the unsophisticated.
I was reminded by an article elsewhere that America imports Russian crude oil because Trump imposed sanctions on Venezuela back in 2019. Remember Bolton's mad regime change project?
I doubt anyone but the madder Trump Republicans would complain if Biden quietly lifted the sanctions and recognised Maduro as the legitimate president of Venezuela.
The West has to be careful here, we are inducing EPIC scale depression and scarcity on a huge civilian population. I know no one wants to hear about Russian suffering while Ukraine is being recklessly assaulted, but this is an economic experiment in max squeezing of a country. Russia is middle income not poor country and we are about to kick everyone of their citizens down an economic hell hole. Not sure we can just stop if it gets too bad
Lol, nope. Destruction of Russia and their nuclear fleet through readiness and mass genocide is the final solution. My advice is dump Putie's long wore out government, end the Ukraine shit and shut the hell up. It's like backhanding Republican women. Long overdue.
Vladimir Putin should have been more careful. It’s still within his power to keep his country from suffering. This is not an ‘experiment’, it is an alternative to a military defense of a country under wholly unjustified attack.
Gack. I just got through watching an interview with Rep. Andy Biggs on the News Hour. He sounded like a real idiot, complaining about the oil and gas loophole in the sanctions and going on about the 500,000 bbl/day (about 3% of our supply) that we import each day from Russia. Fine, but he's ignoring the fact that Russian oil supplies make up about 15% of the world supply and around 25% of the European supply.
I suppose if he is ready to pay the economic price of cutting off Russian oil (and gas) supplies I wouldn't complain too much, but you have to have Europe on line to make this work and not having the loophole would cripple European economies. And getting rid of 15% of global supply would drive oil, and thus gasoline, price sky high.
If I thought for an instant if this was an honest criticism I'd be fine. But I have no doubt that if this was done Republicans, such as Rep. Biggs, would waste no time rushing to the cameras and complaining about high gas prices.
Cracks me up watching glibtards and contards whining about "cancelling" Russians. Give me a break. That Oligarchs money is supporting their asses is damned high. What's really being cancelled in the Ukraine. Ah, those morons and their self reflection.