Tankers are being filled around sanctions

Sergey Kondratiev, Deputy Head of the Economic Department of the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented to the Kommersant FM radio station on oil exports from Russia to China.

In early May, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said that Russia needed to diversify fuel supplies and reorient them, including to Asia.

In part, this scenario is already coming true, Sergei Kondratyev says:

“If we are talking about the ESPO example, this is not so much a restructuring of oil supplies to Asia as, first of all, an increase in supplies to China with a reduction in shipments to Japan and South Korea. These countries are now trying to reduce oil imports from Russia, fearing the need to be forced to join the ban on the purchase of Russian raw materials.

As for the movement towards Asian markets, the example that we now see in the ports of the North-West, in Novorossiysk, is more indicative. If in February almost none of these ports went there, now about 0.6-0.7 mbd is delivered to Asian countries, primarily to China. How sustainable is this trend, how long will it last? It's hard to say.

China, India, and Southeast Asia are attracted by very large discounts on Russian oil, but the Chinese are trying to follow the principle of diversification, so they are unlikely to be ready to seriously increase the import of raw materials from Russia. Moscow will still have to look for other buyers.”