U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to hit buyers of Russian exports with sanctions unless Russia agrees a peace deal over the conflict in Ukraine, potentially complicating Moscow’s oil sales to China, India and Turkey.
RUSSIA’S OIL GRADES, PORTS
According to the International Energy Agency, Russia’s revenue from sales of crude oil and oil products in June declined by almost 14% from a year earlier to $13.57 billion.
Russia’s crude output, however, stayed broadly flat at 9.2 million barrels per day (bpd) last month and crude loadings were stable at 4.68 million bpd, the IEA said. Its exports of oil products dropped by 110,000 bpd to 2.55 million bpd.
Russia exports Urals, Siberian Light and CPC Blend oil grades from its Western ports, such as Primorsk, Ust-Luga and Novorossiisk. It also loads smaller amounts of Arctic oil, ARCO and Novy port grades from its northern Murmansk port.
Russia also exports the ESPO Blend from Kozmino port in the Far East, and the Sokol and Sakhalin Blend from Sakhalin island in the Pacific.
Russian oilfields are also linked by pipelines to China and European countries. Currently only Hungary and Slovakia are still buying oil from Russia in Europe as part of an exception to European Union sanctions.
Russia also provides its pipeline network for oil transit from Kazakhstan for further shipments to its ports and via the Druzhba oil pipeline to Germany. Russia also exports its oil to neighbour Belarus, which has two major refineries.
MAIN BUYERS
China remains the largest buyer of Russian oil, mostly due to direct connections to Russian fields by pipeline: oil enters the country via the Skovorodino-Mohe and Kazakhstan’s Atasu-Alashankou oil pipelines, and the rest is purchased by Chinese refineries by sea.
China purchases about 2 million bpd of oil from Russia -mainly ESPO Blend, Sokol and Sakhalin Blend, as well as some Urals and Arctic oil, according to Chinese customs data.
That’s worth around $130 million each day, according to Reuters’ calculations.
The main buyers are energy companies CNPC, Sinopec and CNOOC as well as independent refineries.
India is the second-largest oil buyer from Russia and the main buyer of its flagship Urals oil. India also purchases ESPO Blend oil, Sokol and Arctic grades from Russia. Its overall imports of Russian oil are at about 1.8 million bpd, according to ship tracking data from Kpler.
Russian oil flows to most of India’s refiners, including Reliance Industries, owner of the world’s largest refinery. It also flows to private refiner Nayara Energy, in which Russia’s Rosneft holds a stake, as well as Indian Oil and ONGC.
The third-largest importer of Russian oil, Turkey, ramped its purchases to an annual record in June of 400,000 bpd, according to LSEG.
The increase in purchases of Russian oil by Turkey was due to a price decline of the Russian grade. Since April 1, Urals oil has been trading consistently below the price cap of $60 per barrel.
Turkey’s STAR refinery, controlled by Azerbaijan’s SOCAR, is the main buyer of Russian oil in Turkey, while another major refiner, Tupras, also purchases Urals grade oil.
OIL PRODUCTS
Russia exports some 2.5 million bpd of fuel products, including low-sulphur diesel, gasoline, naphtha, fuel oil and others.
Since 2023, Russia has also diverted its oil-product sales from Europe to Asia and Latin America.
Moscow is a major diesel supplier to Brazil and Turkey, while it also supplies significant volumes of fuel to African countries including Ghana, Egypt, Morocco, Togo and Tunisia.
OTHERS
Russian oil and products also flow to “friendly” states as Moscow calls the countries it continues to do business with.
Among the buyers are Syria, which has recently started to buy Russian fuel and Arctic oil, as well as countries such as Pakistan, Cuba and Sri Lanka.
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Sharon Singleton)