Alexey Gromov, Principal Director on Energy studies at the Institute for Energy and Finance, assessed the possible consequences of new US sanctions on the Russian oil industry in an interview with the Infotech Internet portal.
The tankers that have been sanctioned by the United States, which are already on the routes for delivering Russian oil to India and China, probably will not be able to unload quickly until the situation with law enforcement practice is clarified. In this regard, a short-term drop in Russian maritime exports is likely by at least 15-20%, and maybe by as much as 30%, Alexey Gromov believes.
He noted that the decline in Russian oil exports will be a problem not only for Russia, but also for the main countries that buy Russian oil, i.e. India and China.
The expert noted that neither India nor China, especially against the background of the parallel tightening of US sanctions against the Iranian "shadow fleet" in November 2024, are not interested in reducing purchases of Russian oil.
Gromov believes that in the medium term, the volume of Russian oil exports will have to recover gradually over several months."In this case, the process of creating an independent financial and logistics infrastructure to ensure export-import operations with Russian oil will obviously accelerate. And this is not only a transition to trade in national currencies, but also alternative insurance systems for such goods, as well as dedicated logistics centers for their reception (which China offers in particular), focused only on trade in sanctioned goods," he stressed.
"The price of the issue is the amount of discounts on Russian oil that its key buyers can ask for," the expert concluded.

Subscribe for updates
and be the first to know about new publications