VIEW / Russia embraced Iranian oil sales schemes :: Economics
The Western forecast also predicts a drop in Russian oil exports. Moscow hid these statistics in order not to give the US and EU leverage. Nothing remains in the western part, as well as the return movement of oil tankers and the fixation of a fall in Russian exports. However, by all appearances, Moscow is already testing serial schemes for supplying oil abroad. What are these schemes and what is their meaning?
While the oil embargo is being discussed with might and main, Russia has classified all possible data on oil production and export. Western analyst reviews have tracked, on a monitored site with tanker traffic, how much Russian oil sales have fallen.
Bloomberg, citing earnings data, estimates that shipments of Russian oil by sea in the week to April 15 fell by 25% to an average of 3.12 million barrels per day. And this is despite the fact that the ban on the purchase of oil from Russia to the EU has not yet been banned, and it is now extremely profitable to buy it. Russian Urals oil is sold at a $20-30 discount to Brent, which is a significant discount. The difference between the difference is only one or two dollars.
However, the volume of Russian oil imports may differ from the data of sites that track the movement of oil tanks. Because Russian sellers have already begun to use bypass schemes to save oil, as Iran and Venezuela do.
An opaque market is now emerging: oil from Russian ports is increasingly disappearing without indication of a specific destination. According to TankerTrackers.com, in the first case, over 11.1 million barrels were loaded onto tankers without a specific route, which is more than in any other coastal country, WSJ. Thus, about 40% of the probability of growth in Russian oil occurred at “unknown dates of appointment,” the newspaper writes. Before the start of Russian special operations in Ukraine, this was not the case.
Two “series” of schemes for delivering Russian oil to European buyers are being practiced, Igor Yushkov says.
The first scheme is this. A tanker in the Baltic Sea turns off the transponder and goes to the Russian port of Ust-Luga or Primorsk. It loads Russian oil there and loses it at sea, where a larger tanker is waiting, where Russian oil is reloaded. Next, the shuttle tanker returns to its original point and turns on the transponder, that is, it ignites again on the radar.
“Officially, the tanker, as it was in the Baltic Sea, remained there, just temporarily turned off the transponder. But in fact, he made a trip for oil to a Russian port,” says Yushkov.
It is impossible to trace its movement according to the websites that track oil tankers. No one can fix the volumes of Russian oil delivered in this way. They do not even come under the radar of Western analysts who monitor the availability of Russian oil. Russia, due to sanctions pressure, has stopped publishing data on production and exports of Russian hydrocarbons in order not to give the US and the EU reasons to attack.
The second scheme, according to the expert, is in many ways similar to different ones. Only in this case, the tanker does not hide when it enters the Russian port and leaves it (already Russian with oil). He does this with a closed transponder, his movement can be tracked on specialized sites. As the WSJ writes, this tanker goes without destinations. It will be impossible to see how this tanker comes with a Russian to a European oil port, for example, to the Netherlands. Because in an operation at sea, he turns off a transponder that is stealthily approaching a larger tanker that is reloading Russian oil. And already a large tanker delivers black gold to European ports.
Thus, Western analysts who track the movement of Russian oil can include in the statistics, except for cases of occurrence, also deliveries through the second, half-gray, structure. But the export of Russian oil, which goes according to the first scheme, is not taken into account in any way. This means that in reality, the drop in probability may be significantly lower than the estimate of the same Bloomberg, or even be absent. “It is impossible to say for sure, but it seems to me that we export not so little, so that deliveries are contained by 25%. The situation is changing almost daily. In general, if there is no toughening of the sentence, the situation will straighten out, and export volumes will normalize, and the discount will decrease. As contracts are concluded with Europeans, territories will be concluded with Asian suppliers, in particular, with India and China,” Yushkov said.
Why does a shuttle tanker (hidden or not hidden) itself not deliver Russian oil to European ports, but shifts it onto the shoulders of a large tanker? After all, the EU has not yet introduced an oil embargo, entry into European ports is limited only partially, an exception has been made just for hydrocarbons?
According to Yushkov, it is no coincidence that the shuttle tanker is reloading Russian oil at sea onto a tanker with a large deadweight.
“Such tankers in the Republic of Tajikistan in order to receive Russian oil with some other oil inside the third sort, which is not assessed by assessment”,
Yushkov says. If you mix oil of Russian origin with other oil in the proportions of 49% to 51%, then on paper the oil turns into “Latvian”, “Uzbek” or any other mixture. It becomes almost impossible to prove that there is Russian oil there.
“Pumping oil from one side to another is not prohibited. And in this case, there are no risks for a company that tells the buyer Russian oil as part of another,” Yushkov.
What are transport companies afraid of? The first risk is reputational, as the Western media are talking about. Politicians were the first to shame Shell for Russian oil at a discount, and she had to unexpectedly. In the end, it is she who describes the scheme for the purchase of Russian oil in the form of a mixture with the fuel fund. Ukraine will reproach Shell for the load and knead this mixture, but formally this scheme is absolutely legal and on paper there is no talk of Russian oil.
But more important is the second factor. “There are problems associated with the insurance of a tanker with Russian oil due to the arrest. Transport companies are required to take out insurance when they enter the port. This is a separate operation. This is due to additional sanctions risks and additional risks,” says the FNEB expert. There are problems with banks being heavily funded by Russian oil, plus Russian oil tanker insurance costs have skyrocketed, WSJ.
If the EU decides to impose an oil embargo, then these “Iranian” schemes will be available for circumvention. “The question will arise whether we will have enough tankers to transport the entire volume of oil in the event of a ban by Brussels? After all, we will also need to export by sea those volumes that used to go through the Druzhba oil pipeline. And then there will inevitably be more tankers,” says Yushkov.
In his opinion, Russia is forced to use some series of schemes in the Baltic Sea, because there are the Baltic States, Poland, Scanvia around and there are no friendly countries. But in the Black Sea the situation is different.
“There is Turkey in the Black Sea, which can become an intermediary in Russia when selling our oil on the world market, but, of course, not for free. Turkey can also change our oil from a religious or other side,” Igor Yushkov believes.
Another partner of Russia in the south could be Bulgaria, unless, of course, the EU imposes an oil embargo. Sofia has a chance to become an entry into Russian oil on the European market under the guise of other oil, on which the Bulgarian business can make good money.
“Turkey can become a complex player. It can not only legalize Russian and oil products, but absolutely all goods from Europe go through Turkey, oil, which at present cannot get to Russia through automobile and sea arteries, ”says the FNEB expert.
Interestingly, not only China and India are interested in Russia not to stop its production in the event of an EU oil embrago, and carefully redirect it to other markets. Europe itself is interested in this, and even the United States, which faced a fuel crisis due to the rise in world oil prices. “If Russia reduces oil production, then all importing countries will suffer. Due to the fact that all the oil remaining on the market is even higher,” the source concludes.