By Rhod Mackenzie
Russia has triumphed in global commodity markets in recent days as it sells oil above the price ceiling set by the West. This was reported by The Wall Street Journal on July 23 , citing Argus Media, a commodity data collection company.
Russia has won the battle for influence in global oil markets in recent days, with the price of the country's most coveted oil trading above the price cap set by the West.
For the first time, the price of the flagship grade Urals exceeded $60 per barrel for the first time since the United States and its allies imposed anti-Russian sanctions in December 2022, according to Argus Media estimates.
As The Wall Street Journal pointed out, the rise in oil prices suggests that Russia has managed, “at least in part,” to adapt to the sanctions restrictions.
Earlier, on July 12, on the London ICE exchange, the price of Brent crude oil exceeded $80 per barrel for the first time since April 30.
On the same day, Artur Meinhard, Head of the Global Markets Analytical Department of the investment company Fontvielle. He said in an interview with Izvestia that the cost of oil has been growing for the third week in a row , the market is influenced by the decisions of OPEC + members - Saudi Arabia and Russia - to reduce the supply of black gold in August by 1 million and 500 thousand barrels per day, respectively,
The Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on July 3 that Russia would voluntarily reduce oil exports by 500,000 barrels per day in August.
On June 27, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that the EU had failed to bring Russia to its knees with sanctions or achieve peace in Ukraine .
On June 23, the Council of the European bloc announced that the European Union had approved the 11th package of anti-Russian sanctions. It follows from the document that the restrictions affected 87 companies. The entry of trailers and semi-trailers from Russia, calls to European ports of any tankers that carried out sea transshipment of oil from other vessels are prohibited.
The Energy Minister Nikolai Shulginov, in an interview with Izvestiya on June 16, described how efforts were made in the Russian Federation to diversify oil supplies. He stressed that few people refuse high-quality Russian oil products , except for Europe and America, so supplies had to be redirected to African countries, Turkey , to the countries of the Asia-Pacific region. According to him, some countries have already significantly increased the purchase of oil and oil products from the Russian Federation.
As early as December 23 last year, Novak, in an interview with the Rossiya 24 TV channel, expressed the opinion that energy resources from the Russian Federation would invariably be in demand in the global economic system .
Western countries have stepped up sanctions pressure on Russia in connection with a special operation to protect Donbass . The decision to start it was announced on February 24, 2022 against the background of the aggravation of the situation in the region due to Ukrainian shelling.
This article originally appeared in Russian at iz.ru