Russian oil supplies are decreasing due to US sanctions

Tankers carrying Russian oil are being forced to change routes, with about 9 million barrels of oil left on tankers that have been idle for at least a week.

The information was confirmed by the vessel tracking data, Bloomberg writes.

Russia has shipped about 51 million barrels of oil since the latest round of U.S. sanctions were imposed on January 10. Russia has shipped less than 39 million barrels of oil in that period, nearly a quarter of which were lifted before the sanctions went into effect.

About 9 million barrels remain on tankers that have been idle for at least a week.

 “A drop in shipments from the Black Sea and the Arctic last week pushed the four-week average of oil shipments from Russian ports to 2.94 million barrels per day through February 23, down 3% from the prior week,” the report said.

 None of the nine tankers that left Murmansk after the imposition of US sanctions have yet to unload their cargo. In particular, the first tankers that loaded in Murmansk after January 10 should have already arrived at their Indian destinations. But some of them were redirected to China, and another tanker transferred its barrels to another ship. The third is anchored far from its destination. The same is happening in the Pacific Ocean.

As we will recall, on February 17 it became known that India has been refusing to let a sanctioned Russian tanker into the port for a week.