According to preliminary estimates, maritime exports of Russian crude oil through Black Sea ports may increase by 15-35% to 3.4-4.2 million tons in January, compared with 2.9 million tons in December 2022, depending on the number of tankers carrying Russian crude oil through the Turkish Straits in the final days of January.
This is stated in a study of the market of maritime transportation of crude oil conducted by the Black Sea Strategic Research Institute’s Monitoring Group, the CFTS portal reports.
According to the authors of the study, this margin of increase is more than the 14.4% increase in the volume of maritime exports of Russian crude oil through Black Sea ports in December, the first month after the imposition of the European Union’s embargo and "price cap" on Russian crude-oil exports to other countries. This increase was due mainly to exports to India.
The study states that the Russian Federation was able to replace two-thirds of the Greek tankers that previously transported Russian crude oil to countries outside the European Union with vessels from non-European countries in December. Therefore, only 24.7% of this crude oil was subject to the "price cap" last month. Accordingly, 75.3% was not subject to the "price cap" because tankers not belonging to carriers based in the European Union transported the crude oil.
The Finnish-based Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) recently estimated that the Western ban and “price cap” on Russian crude oil were costing Russia an estimated USD 172 million per day. According to CREA, the lost profit will increase to USD 280 million per day when the ban is extended to oil products from February 5.
