Aerial view of a ship at sea.
Suryaporn Tromsavang | Moment | Getty Images
Oil-related shipping costs have risen after the United States announced tougher sanctions last week to deplete Russia’s war coffers, a move that poses a major threat to Moscow’s maritime distribution chain.
On January 10, the U.S. Department of the Treasury declare New measures to drain Russia’s energy revenues include sanctions on major producers Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegas, as well as the imposition of sanctions on 183 vessels, which are “mainly tankers from the shadow fleet and tankers owned by Russian fleet operators”.
The U.S. Treasury Department added that several designated tankers were transporting Russian and Iranian oil and further expanded sanctions on Russian marine insurance providers Ingosstrakh Insurance Company and AlfaStrakhovanie Group.
This would be a severe blow to Russia, which was forced to reroute its crude oil and petroleum product supplies to the Asia-Pacific region after European and G7 sanctions came into effect in December 2022 and February 2023.
Analyst firm Vortexa told CNBC on January 7 that some 890 unique tankers have been loaded with Russian oil (including crude oil and petroleum products) in the past six months, with 107 tankers (12% of the total) affected by vessel supervision.
These figures were not included in the January 10 announcement. On Wednesday, the Paris-based International Energy Agency It is estimated that about 160 of the 183 tankers blocked last year transported more than 1.6 million barrels of Russian oil per day, accounting for 22% of Russia’s seaborne exports during the same period.
The latest U.S. measures will also tighten the number of ships available for commissioning by non-Russian parties, driving up shipping costs for other tankers. Since the announcement on January 10, the impact of the ban has spread to freight derivatives, with trading volume in forward freight agreement (FFA) contracts – which allow traders to hedge against fluctuations in freight rates – jumping to 11,412 contracts on January 10. The index reached 7,900 points on January 10, and exceeded 7,900 points on January 13 and 6,700 points on January 14, respectively, according to the Baltic Exchange. This compares to average daily trading volumes of 2,987 and 1,683 contracts in November and December, respectively.
Freight rates for supertankers from the Middle East Gulf to the Asia-Pacific, the oil industry’s bellwether route, rose by more than 40% between January 9 and 14, according to pricing data from Argus Media.
As a result, sanctions “could severely disrupt Russian oil supply and distribution chains,” the IEA warned, noting that Russian exports would be “hit by reductions in the shadow tanker fleet” and “the removal of shipping insurance, the impact on dominant oil Company Limitations”. Russian oil traders and consumer markets mainly handle the designation of companies. “
Still, the agency did not incorporate the latest U.S. moves into its Russian supply forecast, noting that crude exports from the Eastern European country, a key member of the OPEC+ alliance, fell by 250,000 barrels per day month-on-month to 4.6 million barrels per day. Number of barrels per day per month.
