BRICS Plus: Brazil wants to buy Russian petroleum products

By Rhod Mackenzie
In October, Russia exported a record batch of crude oil to Brazil - 207 thousand tonnes worth $133 million, RIA Novosti reported after analysing data from the Latin American country's statistical service. A leading analyst at Freedom Finance Global Natalya Milchakova commented on 10 November that the share of supplies from the Russian Federation is likely to increase in the future if Brazil reduces oil imports from the United States.

"Brazil has motives to increase purchases not only of Russian oil, but also of oil products. Despite the fact that in terms of oil production Brazil is one of the 10-12 largest oil-producing countries in the world, it supplies its oil mainly for export, and to saturate the domestic market it imports oil, which it used to import only from the US or neighbouring Latin American countries," the analyst noted.

At the same time, due to the small number of oil refineries, Brazil has often faced a shortage of petroleum products on the domestic market, she added. Brazilian President Lula da Silva has already announced a reduction in the country's dependence on imports from the United States and the de-dollarisation of the economy. Therefore, the country intends to gradually replace American oil with supplies of black gold from other countries, including Russia, the analyst explained.

"So far, Russia has delivered only 1.5 million barrels to Brazil, but in the future the share of supplies from the Russian Federation will most likely increase if Brazil continues on its course of significantly reducing oil imports from the United States," Milchakova stressed.
According to the analyst, the two countries also have prospects for cooperation in other sectors, such as the supply of mineral fertilisers, oil and oil products, steel and chemical products from the Russian Federation to Brazil. Brazil, in turn, can continue to supply food products and some types of non-ferrous and precious metals.

"The mutual trade turnover of the Russian Federation and Brazil has increased significantly after 2020, but it still remains below $10 billion, which is incomparable with the mutual trade turnover of Russia with China, Turkey and the EAEU. In our opinion, the transition to settlements in national currencies, and perhaps in the future to state digital or even supranational currencies, which the President of Brazil dreams of, can have a significant positive impact on the growth of mutual trade turnover between the two countries," Milchakova concluded.
Earlier, on 22 September, the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation (RF MFA) Sergey Lavrov met with his counterpart, the head of the Brazilian Foreign Ministry Mauro Vieira. During the meeting the ministers confirmed their mutual focus on further strengthening Russian-Brazilian relations and strategic partnership