The EU ban on Russian crude oil is effective as of today, Monday, 5 December 2022. Together with the G7, they’re setting a price cap on Russian oil exported to third countries. This is hugely significant — the first significant sanction imposed on oil or gas imports from Russia by anyone, anywhere. Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air’s new oil sanctions tracker explains dynamics, flows and trends on Russian seaborne crude oil.
The tracker monitors volumes of Russian crude oil and oil products leaving Russian ports since the beginning of 2022, and will continue to illustrate how these volumes change with the EU’s ban on Russian oil, and the wider price cap coalition’s price cap. It also illustrates the owner and insurer countries of vessels carrying Russian oil or oil products, revealing that in November the majority of shipments were onboard vessels either insured and/or owned in the G7 or EU countries. This shows how strong a set of tools the price cap coalition has to further ratchet down the initial price cap – given Russia has so far failed to find alternative shipping and insurance service providers.
We illustrate why, at the start of the EU’s oil ban and the price cap on December 5 2022, we can already see the ban and the price cap having impacts on Russia’s oil markets and revenues. We also illustrate why the price cap coalition is in a very strong position to ratchet down the initial price cap levels impactfully. Finally, we share our recommendations for how the sanctions could be made more effective.
Explore the tracker here. For a further in-depth read, please see our article here.
The oil sanctions tracker and the in-depth article are also available in Ukrainian.