Despite Western sanctions, Russia’s oil producers were able to increase their gasoline exports between January and May this year by more than a third compared to the same period last year. This completes the shift of Russian oil exports in favor of non-Western countries.
Year-to-date exports of high-octane gasoline have increased by 37 percent over the same period last year to nearly 2.5 million tons. This was reported by the Russian daily newspaper Kommersant on Friday, citing sources familiar with the data. Russian oil companies were able to increase their year-to-date gasoline production by 2 percent from 2022 to 17.9 million tons, with fuel supplies to the domestic market falling by almost 2 percent.
Russia’s Energy Ministry last month asked oil refiners to cut exports and increase supply in the domestic market, the newspaper’s sources said.
analysis
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Russia stopped reporting official data on oil production and oil exports in April as market leader Saudi Arabia reportedly plans to hike oil prices to at least $80 a barrel. This is the estimated break-even price for his 2023 budget.
Russia has diverted both crude oil and petroleum product exports following the EU ban on Russian oil imports by sea. The EU banned imports of crude oil in early December 2022 and imposed an embargo on imports of fuel from Russia from February 5, 2023. The price cap for Russian petroleum products (US$100 per barrel for petrol and diesel) set by the EU and the G7 countries did not have a significant impact on export volumes as actual prices were below the cap.
Russian gasoline exports surged in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2022 as Moscow shipped increasing volumes of fuel to African customers following the EU embargo on Russian fuel imports by sea. For the first quarter of 2023, Russian gasoline exports were estimated at 1.9 million tons, against 1.3 million tons for the same period in 2022, according to the refinitive quoted data from the news agency Reuters. 91 percent of the crude now goes to China and India.
According to the specialist portal OilPrice The shift in Russian oil exports also benefits Moscow’s OPEC+ allies in the Middle East, as the biggest Arab Gulf oil producers Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) buy Russian fuel at discounted prices.
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