Tymofiy Mylovanov, KSE President 

September 8, Meeting of President Zelenskyy with Michael Mcfaul and the International Working Group on Russian Sanctions

At the first glance it seems Russia has recovered from initial sanctions shock as Rosstat reports GDP growth of 4.9% year-over-year in Q2 2023. However, it does not mean the sanctions, in particular, energy, are not working. It points out for a non-sufficient sanctions enforcement in key arears as Russian oil exports. Russia is heavily dependent on oil and gas earnings, which finance Russia’s imports and budget, and thereby Russia’s war on Ukraine.

The energy sanctions are helping to constrain Russia’s economy, and ability to conduct war:

• Russian oil sales to Ukraine’s allies have largely ceased,

• Pipeline gas sales to Europe are down over 80%, and

• Russian oil sales to other countries are at a deep discount. As a result, KSE Institute estimates that Russia has lost $140 bn in oil and gas revenues since Russia’s invasion.

Russian oil and gas revenues have fallen sharply this year, reflected in a two-thirds decline in Russia’s trade surplus and a 50% decline in oil and gas budget revenues.

• The halving in energy revenues has left the economy exposed, as capital outflows continue and the cost of war rises.

• This drove the August weakening of the ruble, leading to public disagreement among policymakers, and the Central Bank of Russia’s abrupt shift to tighter monetary policy.[1]

Unfortunately, just as energy sanctions start to bite, Russia is having some success in circumventing them, with around half of its seaborne exports transported by tankers not subject to the price cap, with

• All Russian crude grades now on average selling more than $10 per barrel above the price cap,

• And average prices of Russian oil products surpassed the price cap as well since August.[2]

• Moscow is poised to recapture some of its lost energy revenues. In particular, the price of Russian key export grade crude Urals reached $75 per barrel on September 1.[3]

• As a result of so weak price cap policy enforcement, Russian oil export revenues rebounded and surpassed 2021 average in August, according to KSE Institute estimate.

Russia doesn’t have enough shadow tanker capacity to transport its crude and oil product outside of the price cap regime.  Russian sellers and affiliated with Russian oil majors traders likely provide attestations to shipping and insurance companies that do not reflect the actual price, which may be defined as attestations fraud. Originally, attestation fraud was largely confined to the Pacific Ocean port of Kozmino, where ESPO grade crude has routinely traded above $60. In July, however, market prices for Russia’s Urals blend crude also rose above the cap and continued to grow further above $70 per barrel in August. [4]

And it’s not just Urals that has begun trading above its cap. By early August, Russian gasoil and diesel were trading above the premium product price cap of $100/bbl and Russian fuel oil and naptha were trading above the discount product price cap of $45/bbl.[5]

Consequently, Russia is likely to resort to much wider use of attestation fraud to secure the additional shipping capacity it needs from the mainstream, price-cap-compliant fleet, while still receiving prices above the cap for those cargoes.

An additional  problem is that Russian companies may be able to capture some of the arbitrage that exists in the oil market due to the sanctions regime. Specifically, spreads between the prices of Russian oil exports at ports of origin and those of imports of Russian oil at ports of destination significantly exceed what would be justified by the cost of the transportation, insurance and other services provided. For example,

• Russian Rosneft initially sold the crude oil from the Russian Baltic Sea port of Primorsk at a price of $47/barrel to Hong Kong-based Nord Axis, which sold it to UAE-based Petrokim Trading. Ultimately, Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals acquired the oil at a price of $82/barrel in Indian port. Thus, the spread between port of origin and port of destination amounted to $35 per barrel while economically justified costs of freight, insurance and trade margin premium for shipping and trading sanctioned Russian oil from the Baltic to Western coast of India should not exceed $14 per barrel.

• Another case is with Surgutneftegaz which initially sold the oil to Bellatrix Energy from UAE at a a price of $47/barrel. Next, Bellatrix sold the cargo to Volition Trade, also from the UAE, and the oil was ultimately purchased by India’s Hindustan Petroleum at Indian border at a price of $70/barrel. Thus, the total spread amounted to around $23 per barrel. In addition to the complex contractual arrangement, part of the overall transaction was also conducted in a currency other than U.S. dollar, in this case AED.

• One more case concerns the shipment of crude oil from the Russian port of Murmansk to India. Gazpromneft initially sold the oil to Austrian Commercial Energy Solutions at a Russian border price of $49/barrel. As the involved tanker, was owned and managed by Greek companies and insured in the UK, this makes the transaction formally price cap compliant. The cargo was then sold to UAE-based Petroruss, which, in turn, sold it to Reliance Industries in India, operator of the world’s largest refinery, at the Indian border price of $70/barrel. In this case, part of the overall transaction was also conducted in a AED.[6]

Determining the ultimate beneficiary of these violations is extremely difficult but KSE Institute identified several companies which violated the price cap regime and likely to be connected with Russian oil majors:

• Bellatrix Energy, a company from Hong Kong, was unknown in the oil market before the start of the full-scale invasion; It is received received loans from state-owned Russian Agricultural Bank and Rosneft-owned Russian Regional Development Bank according to corporate filings in Hong Kong.

• Commercial Energy Solutions, based in Vienna, Austria, was previously known as Gazpromneft Trading and its CEO is a Russian national, Vitaly Vyatkin,

• Nord Axis was registered in Hong Kong in 2022 and quickly became the biggest customer of Russian oil major Rosneft, trading more than 500,000 barrels of oil per day.

• Petroruss, based in Dubai, UAE, is suspected to be affiliated with Gazpromneft.

• Gatik Management from India has been investigated by the Financial Times and other media outlets and is suspected to be connected with Russian oil major Rosneft.[7]

Another issue that should be mentioned in relation with shipping Russian oil is the huge environmental risks for the EU. Operation of Russian shadow fleet poses them as decrepit tankers older than 15 years without P&I insurance navigate several European countries coastlines including Danish Straits. A near catastrophic incident in May 2023, when a fully laden with 340,000 barrels of crude shadow tanker lost power and nearly ran aground a mile offshore of the Danish Straits.[8]

Based on KSE and Yermak-McFaul group analysis and findings[9], we recommend that the EU/G7 governments should:

• Undertake regular risk-based audits of attestations. Investigations should start with traders that have only recently begun to participate in the Russian oil trade and may have links to Russian oil companies.

• Strengthen documentation requirements. Authorities should require all participants in the trade with Russian oil to provide additional evidence regarding the terms of the transaction, including original contracts and related customs declarations that indicate the price of the sale

• Set up whitelist of brokers/traders authorized to provide information. Coalition governments should create a list of well-established commodity trading groups based in G7/EU countries and subject to G7/EU law enforcement, which are permitted to provide information with regard to transactions under the price cap (e.g., attestations).

• Enforce oil price cap violations on strict liability basis for civil monetary penalties. Penalties should be increased considerably; civil fines could be set at a level of 10% of worldwide turnover (similar to those for antitrust violations).

• Impose sanctions on third-country entities that facilitate price cap violations.

• Require tankers transiting G7/EU territorial waters to verify adequacy of mandatory spill insurance to ensure that Russia remains heavily reliant on G7/EU-insured vessels and maintain the price cap’s key lever.

• Ban participation of G7/EU players in sale of vessels or its financing. to Russia – or to any buyers whose ultimate beneficial ownership is not fully disclosed to constrain Russia’s ability to build up a sanctions-proof fleet – and significantly increase the cost for doing so.

References:

Hilgenstock, B., Shapoval, N., Kravtsev, A. and B. Dodonov, 2023, How Russia Manages to Capture Arbitrage in the Oil Market, an Analysis of Crude Oil Exports in H12023, KSE Institute unpublished draft

The International Group of Working Sanctions, September 4, 2023, Using Energy Sanctions to Shorten the War, Working Paper #14,  https://fsi9-prod.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2023-09/working_paper_14_-_using-energy-sanctions_09-04-23.pdf

IEA (2023), Oil Market Report – August 2023, IEA, Paris https://www.iea.org/reports/oil-market-report-august-2023

Craig Kennedy, August 23, 2023, Measuring the Shadows. Moscow’s Strategies for Evading Oil Sanctions and How to Stop them from Succeeding, https://navigatingrussia.substack.com/p/measuring-the-shadows?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

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[1] The International Group of Working Sanctions, September 4, 2023, Using Energy Sanctions to Shorten the War, Working Paper #14,  https://fsi9-prod.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2023-09/working_paper_14_-_using-energy-sanctions_09-04-23.pdf

[2] IEA (2023), Oil Market Report – August 2023, IEA, Paris https://www.iea.org/reports/oil-market-report-august-2023

[3] S&P Global Commodity Insights, September 4, 2023, Russian oil exports hit 11-month low as refinery downtime, output cuts bite, https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/oil/090423-russian-oil-exports-hit-11-month-low-as-refinery-downtime-output-cuts-bite

[4] The International Group of Working Sanctions, September 4, 2023, Using Energy Sanctions to Shorten the War, Working Paper #14,  https://fsi9-prod.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2023-09/working_paper_14_-_using-energy-sanctions_09-04-23.pdf

[5] IEA (2023), Oil Market Report – August 2023, IEA, Paris https://www.iea.org/reports/oil-market-report-august-2023

[6] Source: Hilgenstock, B., Shapoval, N., Kravtsev, A. and B. Dodonov, 2023, How Russia Manages to Capture Arbitrage in the Oil Market, an Analysis of Crude Oil Exports in H12023, KSE Institute unpublished draft

[7] Ibid.

[8] Craig Kennedy, August 23, 2023, Measuring the Shadows. Moscow’s Strategies for Evading Oil Sanctions and How to Stop them from Succeeding, https://navigatingrussia.substack.com/p/measuring-the-shadows?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

[9] The International Group of Working Sanctions, September 4, 2023, Using Energy Sanctions to Shorten the War, Working Paper #14,  https://fsi9-prod.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2023-09/working_paper_14_-_using-energy-sanctions_09-04-23.pdf