Russia Ships Record Volumes To India, China, & Italy

27 May 2022 Issue: 65 / 21 By: James Cockayne

Russian crude export flows are stabilizing after being displaced from several core European markets amid the fallout from the Ukraine invasion. India has taken advantage of heavily discounted barrels to increase buying tenfold, China’s imports have risen to near-record levels, whilst Russian firms Lukoil and Rosneft have switched the diet of their refineries in Italy and Germany to near-100% Russian Urals crude as the firms look to soak up their surplus output.

On the surface Russia’s crude exports, at least in terms of overall volumes, have been little impacted by sanctions and self-sanctioning on behalf of western countries since Russia’s 24 February invasion of Ukraine. MEES analysis of figures from data intelligence firm Kpler shows that Russia’s 3.26mn b/d of seaborne crude exports for March (excluding volumes from the CPC Terminal on the Black Sea which ships mostly Kazakh crude) were level with the average for the preceding five months.

And, far from a drop, volumes surged to 3.77mn b/d for April, the highest level since mid-2019 and only fell slightly to 3.57mn b/d for the first 25 days of May (see chart 1). (CONTINUED - 1632 WORDS)