Berlin/Moscow
The EU and G7 had just introduced a price cap for Russian oil when the tit-for-tat follows: Putin bans oil exports.
Russia does not want to supply oil to countries that have a state cap on the price. This emerges from a decree issued by the Russian President Wladimir Putin signed and was published on Tuesday. The ban applies from February 1st and comes as no surprise. You might also be interested in: Oil price cap: How Putin wants to circumvent western sanctions
Affected by the ban are the seven leading industrial nations USA, Canada, Japan, Great Britain, Germany, France and Italy. They had one as of December 5th as a sanction Upper limit for oil transport by sea decided.
This is 60 US dollars (57 euros) per barrel (159 liters). Australia and Norway have joined the sanction. This is intended to limit Russian export earnings and ultimately make it more difficult to finance the Ukraine war. The Russian leadership speaks of a violation of the free market and immediately announced countermeasures.
Putin’s counterattack: he has tankers bought up massively in order to get rid of Russian oil
“Supplies of Russian oil and oil products to foreign companies and individuals are prohibited if the mechanism for fixing a price cap is directly or indirectly built into these contracts,” the decree said. For oil products like petrol and diesel the Russian government should still set the exact date, although it must not be before February 1, it said.
According to media reports, Russia had started massively old oil tankers buy up in order to ship the raw material with their own means. India and China are the main sales markets. Most recently, Putin also opened an important natural gas field in the east of his country in order to also increase exports to China.
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Germany has one anyway ongoing oil embargo – including on pipelines – which will come into effect on January 1st. Yesterday’s measure does not change the supply situation in Germany. It is unclear how the world market will react. (fmg)
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