Russia is violating sanctions and selling its oil above the authorized price - WSJ

Russia sells its Urals crude oil above the Western price ceiling of $60 per barrel. In this way, Moscow blatantly ignores sanctions and also increases revenues to its budget - which allows it to continue the war against Ukraine.

This is reported by The Wall Street Journal. The situation there called the victory of the Russian Federation in the oil market.

"Russia has emerged victorious in its struggle to influence global oil markets in recent days. Its oil has traded above a Western price ceiling designed to deprive Moscow of funds for the war in Ukraine," the report said.

Nevertheless, the situation can be corrected. As explained by the authors of the material, this will be possible if individual Russian client countries in Asia do not want to spoil relations with the West and:

• refuse to cooperate with the West;
• or comply with price restrictions.

However, it is noted that so far the opposite trend has been observed. Thus:

• despite all the risks, these customers increase their purchases;
• only a few adhere to the restrictions.

How much Urals costs

According to investing.com, as of July 21, the spot price of Urals crude oil was $65.42 per barrel. That's more than $5 above the price ceiling.

Russian oil supplies by sea have sharply decreased

Meanwhile, a few months after reports of falling oil production in Russia, the first signs of a decline in transportation of the resource have emerged. This jeopardizes the Kremlin's revenues from export taxes.

Thus, the average oil shipments from Russian ports for the four weeks of June-July are significantly lower than the average February level. And revenues to the Kremlin's military coffers from the oil export duty fell 29% to $43 million in the seven days to July 9.

The four-week average revenue also fell. The drop amounted to $4 million to $49 million.

As reported OBOZREVATEL, meanwhile, on July 24, came into force a ban on access to EU ports of tankers that handle oil of the Russian Federation and suspected of violating the price ceiling. This expansion of oil restrictions against Russia is provided for in the 11th package of sanctions against the aggressor.

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