Dutch energy and commodity trade The source said that the company will not enter into any new transactions for Russian crude and products.
Vitol declined to comment other than to confirm the accuracy of an article published by Bloomberg, which reported the news earlier.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia have announced an embargo on Russian oil.
As Russian oil became toxic to many buyers, the standard Ural crude was trading at an ever-larger discount on the world market. It is now worth $34 a barrel less than Brent crude.
The International Energy Agency estimated on Wednesday that Russian oil supplies will fall by 1.5 million barrels per day in April, and could fall by as much as 3 million barrels per day from May as buyers move away.
“While some buyers, most notably in Asia, have increased their purchases of sharply discounted Russian barrels, traditional customers are cutting back,” the agency said. “At the moment, there are no indications of an increase in the volume of going to China.”
This is more than Russia’s daily exports of crude oil, which the International Energy Agency estimated at 4.7 million barrels in 2021. Of that, about 2.4 million barrels per day went to Europe.
The cumulative effect of this increased ban could be a global surge in oil prices as buyers scramble to replace supplies. Russia is the world’s second largest crude oil exporter, after Saudi Arabia, and accounted for 14% of global supply last year, according to the International Energy Agency.
– Chris Liakos contributed to this article.
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