- Both India and China are importing Russian crude at a record pace.
- Energy Intelligence: at least 20 trading companies—but probably a lot more—are sending Russian oil around the world.
- According to Trafigura, the total number of tankers that have been “reserved” to carry Russian oil could be as high as 600, of which 400 crude tankers.
Vitol, Trafigura, BP, Shell, Equinor—all of them upped and left whatever business they had in Russia, leaving an empty space. It did not take very long for this space to fill, it seems. It has been filled with newly set up trading firms, most of them set up very recently and outside Europe. And they are not trading in dollars or euros.
The trades that these companies are conducting with Russian oil and fuels are being financed by banks in the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, with European banks, like European commodity traders, “out of the picture,” as Energy Intelligence puts it.
Who is being "isolated"?
Russian Oil Sanctions Have Redrawn Global Trade Maps
Irina Slav