Trump's duties against the Russian oil industry: when Washington itself is afraid

Alexey Gromov, Principal Director on Energy studies at the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented on the possible consequences for Russian oil exports from the likely imposition of secondary US sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil to the Neft and Capital Internet portal.

"Ideally, if the United States imposes all the promised duties and secondary sanctions, if China and India begin to reduce the purchase of Russian oil, then prices on the world market will immediately start to twitch at the moment. These will not be critical levels, it's just that the mood of traders will become more "bullish" — in the direction of higher prices. But it won't be a critical price increase. Even during the recent Iran-Israel conflict, the market saw a 12% price increase, and only at the moment.

The big question is how much India and China will be able to quickly and effectively replace Russian oil volumes in the event of secondary US sanctions. Half of China's exports from Russia are long—term pipeline contracts (ESPO grade). Beijing is unlikely to give up on them, however, as well as on sea supplies if they fall under sanctions," Alexey Gromov said.

According to Alexey Gromov, Russia, China and India are likely to agree that the US sanctions pressure will be ignored at the political level. Moscow, of course, will be asked for oil discounts for this, and it will probably agree. Even India, which is highly dependent on American investments in the economy, will not be able to abandon large volumes of oil at favorable prices, which have been purchased from in recent years.