Oil-related shipping costs have soared after the United States last week announced tougher sanctions specifically targeting Moscow’s maritime commerce to thwart Russia’s war effort.
On January 10, the Ministry of Finance announced new measures to reduce Russia’s energy revenues. This included sanctions against Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegaz, as well as 183 vessels, mostly oil tankers that were part of the shadow fleet or owned by Russia. base operator.
The Treasury Department added that a number of the sanctioned vessels were transporting both Russian and Iranian oil. Sanctions also extended to Russian-based marine insurance companies Ingostrah Insurance Company and Alpha Strakhovany Group.
The move is a devastating blow to Russia, which is rerouting crude oil and oil products to Asia-Pacific after export bans in Europe and G7 countries come into effect in December 2022 and February 2023, respectively. I was aiming to give.
Analytics firm Vortexa told CNBC on January 7 that approximately 890 vessels carrying both crude oil and petroleum products were carrying Russian oil, and at the time 107 of these vessels, or 12%, were ship-specific. He said he was subject to sanctions.
However, this figure does not include the International Energy Agency, which estimates that last year around 160 of the 183 sanctioned tankers carried more than 1.6 million barrels of Russian crude oil per day, accounting for 22% of Russia’s seaborne exports that year. evaluation is not taken into account.
The latest U.S. measures also plan to increase the number of ships destined for non-Russian commissions and increase shipping costs for other ships. After the January 10 announcement, the impact of sanctions also affected other oil shipments. Baltic Exchange figures show trading volume in Forward Freight Agreement (FFA) contracts surged to 11,412 contracts on January 10, easily exceeding the 7,900 and 6,700 contracts on January 13 and 14, respectively. Ta. The average number of contracts traded per day in the last two months of the year was 2,987 and 1,683 contracts, respectively.
The cost of transporting supertankers, the bread and butter of the oil trade, from the Middle East and the Gulf to the Asia-Pacific rose at least 40% between January 9 and 14, according to data from Argus Media.
The IEA said the sanctions could substantially disrupt Russia’s oil supply and distribution chain. Russian exports will be hit hard by the reduction of the shadow fleet, the abolition of ship insurance, restrictions on the main traders of Russian oil, and the designation of main traders in the consumer market.
However, the agency did not take into account the latest U.S. measures in its Russian supply forecast, and noted that crude oil exports from Eastern Europe’s OPEC+ member state were 4.6 million barrels per day in December, down 250,000 barrels from the previous month. pointed out.
