Japan lowers price cap for Russian oil to $47.60 per barrel

Japan has joined the EU sanctions, increasing pressure on Moscow over its war in Ukraine.

The Japanese government on September 12 lowered the price ceiling for Russian oil from $60 to $47.60 per barrel, Reuters reported.

In addition to the price cap, Tokyo will also impose additional sanctions in the form of asset freezes and export controls against a number of Russian and foreign entities.

Japan has agreed with the G7 countries to gradually phase out imports of Russian oil. However, the country continues to purchase Sakhalin Blend, a by-product of LNG production under the Sakhalin-2 project. It accounts for about 9% of Japan’s liquefied gas imports, so transactions related to this project remain outside the price cap.

In total, from January to July, Japan purchased only 95,000 kiloliters (about 599,000 barrels) of Russian oil — just 0.1% of the country’s total imports.

Also, as USM wrote, the US is proposing high tariffs to the G7 against China and India for purchasing Rosneft.