Russia intends to introduce new sanctions prohibiting exports of crude oil, petroleum products, and coal to Ukraine, the CFTS portal reports, citing the Vedomost publication.
Russia will ban export of crude oil and petroleum products to Ukraine and broaden the list of Ukrainian goods that are prohibited for import into Russia, Russia’s Prime Minister Medvedev has announced.
According to Russia, these sanctions are in response to the trade sanctions that Ukraine imposed on Russia last week. The Russian import restrictions apply to Ukrainian engineering, light-industry, and metal products. According to Medvedev, such products worth almost USD 250 million were imported into Russia last year.
According to the relevant Medvedev order published on the Russian government’s website, Russia has completely banned exports of crude oil, petroleum products, bitumen, and other materials necessary for road pavements to Ukraine. Exports of coal, gasoline, and diesel fuel will be possible only with the permission of the Russian government from June 1. Pipes, paper, cardboard, shoes, suits, women's underwear, and enameled kitchenware have been added to the list of Ukrainian import goods that are banned.
Medvedev said that special permits would be required for export of certain Russian goods to Ukraine.
“The list of those goods that can be exported to Ukraine based only on individual permits from June 1 this year is being compiled. This category includes products of the fuel and energy complex, including coal and crude oil, and petroleum products,” he said.
According to data from CFTS Consulting, 3.62 million tons of anthracite worth USD 387,329,000, 11.36 million tons of bituminous coal worth USD 1,433,030,000, and 20,800 tons other types of coal worth a total of USD 2,131,000 were imported from Russia in the period of January-December 2018. In total, over 15 million tons of coal was imported from the Russian Federation into Ukraine in 2018, which accounted for 70% of the total coal imports.
In addition, 2.73 million tons of diesel fuel worth USD 1,807,661,000 and 495,740 tons of propane-butane worth USD 249,283,000 were imported from Russia into Ukraine last year. Ukraine also imported 1,100 tons of crude oil and raw petroleum products extracted from bituminous rocks worth USD 602,600 from the Russian Federation in 2018. Russian companies exported 8,030 tons of ethylene, propylene, and butylene worth a total of USD 4,090,000 to Ukraine last year.
"Ukraine will be able to quickly cover the shortage of petroleum products that will arise as a result of the Russian ban on their export to the country but prices of diesel fuel will rise by UAH 1-1.5 per liter and liquefied gas by UAH 2 per liter," said Serhii Kuyun, the director of the A-95 Consulting Company.
According tom him, Ukraine imports mainly diesel fuel and liquefied natural gas from Russia. “Deliveries of diesel fuel from Russia will be replaced by switching to imports from Belarus, deliveries by sea, and increase of production by Ukrtatnafta,” Kuyun said.
Shortages of liquefied natural gas will also be covered by deliveries by sea and imports from Kazakhstan and the European Union.
As the CFTS portal reported earlier, the Ukrainian government expanded its trade sanctions on Russia on April 10 by broadening the list of banned imports from Russia to include glass containers, formalin, urea-formaldehyde concentrate, conductors of electric current with voltages exceeding 1,000 volts, and parts for railway infrastructure and railcars
