Russia’s seaborne crude-oil flows jumped to 3.74 million barrels per day in the final week of March, its highest level since the beginning of 2024.
The increase in crude-oil exports from Russia last week occurred amid an easing of the high winds that repeatedly hampered loadings at Russia’s main Pacific port in recent weeks, the CFTS portal reports, citing the Enkorr publication.
According to tanker-tracking data compiled by the news agency Bloomberg, the measure of shipments reached its highest since early November in the period to 31 March.
The surge in shipments helped boost Moscow’s oil earnings, despite a program of sanctions designed to squeeze the Kremlin’s ability to fund its war in Ukraine. The gross value of crude exports soared to a five-month high of USD 1.9 billion in the seven days to 31 March from a revised USD 1.75 billion in the period to 24 March. Four-week average income was also up, rising by about USD 110 million to USD 1.74 billion a week.
Most of the backlog of Russia’s Sokol crude oil that built up after being turned away by Indian refiners has now been discharged. About 9.1 million barrels, half of the total, have been delivered to refineries in China. Another 7 million barrels are finding their way back to India, although almost half of that is still on tankers anchored at Indian ports. One cargo was delivered to Pakistan.
Earlier, experts said Russia was likely to begin exporting more crude oil to compensate for the losses from the reduction in gasoline exports amid Ukrainian strikes on its refineries.
As reported earlier, from the introduction of the EU mechanism for capping the price of seaborne Russian crude oil and petroleum products in December 2022 until the end of February 2024, about 11.4 million tons (82.9 million barrels) of Russian crude oil were delivered from Russian Black Sea ports to ports and transshipment points in the EU.
