– Russian oil transfers by sea are facing a major crisis with the entry into force of the European embargo on Russian oil, in parallel with setting a price ceiling not exceeding sixty dollars, so that the countries of the European Union, the Group of Seven and Australia are prohibited from providing any service to oil tankers loaded with Russian crude, including securing them.
Since the first of December, Turkey began to demand new insurance documents for oil tankers that want to cross the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits, which are supervised by Ankara, after international companies decided to cancel the insurance of many tankers due to the sanctions imposed on Russia, as the G7 countries account for ninety percent. Insurance policies for international shipments.
– The specialized website “The Tanker Tracker” stated on Wednesday morning that Russian crude shipments that are exported by sea have halved in the last 48 hours.
Russia will implement what is required without submission
Lana Badfan, a researcher in international relations at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, told the “Sky News Arabia” website that the decision to ban Russian oil with a price ceiling has indeed resulted in the accumulation of many ships in the Turkish Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits, because Turkey is committed to the international traffic control agreement. Maritime to the Black Sea, and it must abide by international resolutions in this regard.
She added that Turkey is obliged to request new insurances for any passing ships, and therefore the Russian oil companies must provide new contracts to insure ships and protect them from damage, and that these contracts also include setting the price of oil at less than the ceiling set by Europe, which is $60 a barrel of crude.
And she added that Russia has no choice but to provide these insurance contracts and they include setting the price, and Russia actually sells oil all the time to Turkey, China and India for less than $60 a barrel, and setting the price does not mean that Russia has submitted to the European decision, because it has long been selling to Asian countries at a price lower than the European continent. Hence, the issue will be just new legal transactions that Russia is conducting now with its carriers, which are far from cooperating with Western carriers.
Badvan stressed that Russia has another problem related to the fact that the number of ships and oil tankers it has is much less than what Europe owns, and therefore either Russia buys new tankers or continues to deal with Western tankers with new legal contracts that provide insurance and set the price.
She explained that Turkey is obliged to request these insurance contracts because, in addition to being committed to an international agreement, it removes any suspicions that it is participating in China in mitigating the impact of sanctions on Russia or that it is a partner for Russia, and then Russia will work to provide insurance contracts and the price to spare Turkey any sanctions as well. By completing its commercial dealings and continuing to export Russian oil.
The Bosphorus straits, which connect the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, which ends in the Aegean Sea, constitute a mandatory passage route for oil tankers coming from Russia, as well as for ships that, since last summer, have been transporting Ukrainian grain within the framework of an agreement between Ukraine and Russia sponsored by Turkey and the United Nations.
– According to the Montreux Agreement dating back to 1936, Turkey monitors the navigational traffic in the aforementioned straits, and since 2002, Ankara obliges any ship intending to cross them to be covered by insurance under penalty of being prevented from passing.
The increasing demand will lead to the solution
Professor at the Faculty of Orientalism at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Rami Al-Qalyubi, said in statements to “Economy Sky News Arabia” that the seriousness of the issue lies in the fact that the price ceiling and embargo decision appears at first glance to be limited to the countries of the European Union and the countries of the Western bloc, but it actually hinders the transportation of Russian oil. Around the world, because most countries demand insurance policies for oil tankers, as Turkey demands.
But Al-Qalyubi stressed that the market is ultimately subject to supply and demand, given all the pressures that Russia has been subjected to, as it has been able in recent months to achieve huge sales of oil to China and India and compete with major oil-producing countries, and then gradually Russia will find a solution to the current crisis, and will work To circumvent these sanctions by offering discounts on Russian oil, and Russian oil is essentially cheaper than Brent crude, because it contains higher levels of sulfur, and at the end of last November it was sold at $52 a barrel.
He added that even if Russia lowered the price to less than that, it would not be a loser, because the Russian budget during the past years was set on the basis of a price ranging between 40 and 45 dollars per barrel, and Russia was depositing oil benefits in Western assets that were eventually confiscated, and then If Russia offers discounts on oil, it will not lose and will push buyers to search for ways to provide insurance policies for Russian oil tankers, and Russia will thus find gradual solutions.
He pointed out that one of the solutions that Russia will also resort to is changing the origin of the oil. In the case of gas, Russia will work to establish a gas complex in Turkey, so that the Russian gas becomes Turkish, and thus this will be an alternative mechanism for evading European and Western sanctions, and if the West has not been able to completely ban it. For Venezuelan and Iranian oil from the global market, it will not be able to remove a country the size of Russia from the supplies of global markets. As for Turkey’s position and its request for insurance documents from Russian oil tankers, this means that Turkey is not an ally of Russia, but rather a trading partner, and it can abandon Moscow if it gets an offer. Better than Europe.
At the same time, he stressed that the issue of the Russian oil embargo will definitely affect the Western system negatively, and will lead to a further increase in energy prices, and therefore the West itself and Western companies will search for a way out of this crisis before Russia itself, in addition to the fact that Russian gas is mainly transported Through the pipes and will not be affected much by the ban.
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