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Haley Zaremba

Haley Zaremba

Haley Zaremba is a writer and journalist based in Mexico City. She has extensive experience writing and editing environmental features, travel pieces, local news in the…

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Asia Is Keeping Russian Energy Profitable, But For How Long?

  • When Western nations originally slapped sanctions on Russian oil and gas, the goal was to cripple the country’s energy revenues and dramatically cut exports.
  • Instead, Russia has been able to pivot its energy exports to Asia, with demand climbing across the continent amid a heatwave.
  • Despite this, Moscow cannot escape the long-term impact of the West turning its back on Russian oil and gas, with the energy transition accelerating rapidly and Russia’s energy industry losing influence.
Primorsk

All of Europe’s efforts to slap sanctions on Russian oil and gas may have been in vain. While the European Union has shown considerable success in weaning itself off of its heavy Russian gas dependence, Asian countries have not followed the same path. The result has been a windfall of cheap energy for China and India and an extreme softening of the intended blow to Moscow. 

Despite the West’s best efforts to push a coordinated attack on the Russian energy economy in condemnation of the Kremlin’s ongoing war in Ukraine, some of the biggest economies in the world haven’t cooperated. In fact, energy giants including China and India have capitalized on the sudden surplus of Russian fossil fuels, snapping up bumper crude oil purchases to the extent that, just last month, Markets Insider reported that “China and India are buying so much Russian oil that Moscow's now selling more crude than it was before invading Ukraine.”

And since that report, Asia’s purchases of Russian energy supplies have only increased. Thanks to a crippling heat wave, grids across Asia are under extreme strain, and demand has sharply risen for coal, gas, and fuel oil. According to figures from data intelligence firm Kpler, coal exports to Asia have jumped by a third as compared to last year, fuel oil exports just had their two highest months on record, and shipments of LNG have experienced a relatively large uptick as well. 

As of now, Russian oil represents nearly 20% of India's annual crude imports, compared to just 2% in 2021, according to figures from the Indian state-controlled Bank of Baroda. Together, China and India have emerged as the “most enthusiastic buyers of discounted Russian oil,’ and now Russian coal, gas, and fuel oil, but other Asian nations have also been cashing in on the windfall, most notably South Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka. Turkey and Bulgaria, too, have significantly increased their imports from Russia. Despite its membership in the EU, Bulgaria has an exemption from the ban on Russian oil, allowing the nation to continue to import it by sea. Related: Clean Energy Megaprojects Face Iron Law

“The worst place to be right now amid these searing temperatures is South Asia, especially poorer nations like Pakistan or Bangladesh,” John Driscoll, director of JTD Energy Services Pte in Singapore, was quoted by Bloomberg. “When you can’t even take care of your people’s basic needs, it’s very hard to care too much about international affairs.” 

But the reality is that, since the very beginning of this war, there was never a global unified front taking a stand against Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Indeed, a Bruegel report from earlier this year said that nearly 60% of the global population either felt neutral about the Russian invasion of Ukraine or actually endorsed Russia’s aggression. As a result, and as we can clearly see now in Asia, sanctions against Russian energy are essentially toothless without broad cooperation. 

However, Bruegel argues that what appears to be resilience in the Russian economy and the wholesale swapping-out of Western markets for Eastern ones can’t last. In fact, Bruegel argues that the sanctions are rather beside the point. “Perhaps the most important change is that by exposing the EU’s dependence on fossil fuels so blatantly, Russian aggression has accelerated the energy transition, and not just in the EU,” the February report states. “The Russian economic model is totally dependent on an industry that will become extinct.”

The shake-up of global trade agreements and geopolitics has undeniably changed the agenda for powerhouse economies that have enough sway to change the trajectory of the global energy market as a whole. By flexing its leverage, Russia has shot itself in the foot. In direct reaction to the fallout between Brussels and the Kremlin, Western economies are re-prioritizing domestic energy supply chains, with a major emphasis on renewables. Together, war and subsidies may have knocked ten years off of the green transition timeline, the Economist reported earlier this year. The International Energy Agency, too, has reported that Russia’s war has triggered a “turbo-charging” of the clean energy transition, predicting that fossil fuels will peak in just five years. 

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By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com


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  • Mamdouh Salameh on May 26 2023 said:
    The unprecedented Western sanctions against Russia, the bans on its oil and gas exports and the price cap have failed miserably to cripple Russian energy exports and the Russian economy.

    The proofs are that Russia has managed to find markets in Asia and elsewhere in the world for its entire energy exports. Moreover, Russian exports of crude and petroleum products have broken records three times this year the latest of which hitting 8.3 million barrels a day (mbd) or 3.75% higher than pre-Ukraine level of 8.0 mbd. Furthermore, Russia has been selling its crude at far higher prices than cap only slightly less than the international prices.

    The overwhelming majority of countries of the world have ignored Western sanctions altogether partly because they have no axe to grind in the Ukraine conflict and partly because of their hatred of US-led West while Asian countries led by China, India and Turkey have been competing enthusiastically for Russian oil, gas, LNG and coal.

    Western countries are clutching at straws. During the pandemic in 2020 these countries along with the IEA, BP, environmental activists and many others claimed falsely that the pandemic has accelerated global energy transition and also advanced peak oil demand to even 2025. How wrong and delusional were they proven to be? Now they are claiming that the Ukraine conflict has accelerated the energy transition when in fact it caused a shift of Russian energy exports from west to east, exposed Western countries’ and the world’s dependence on Russian energy, demonstrated the futility and complete failure of Western sanctions and proved to the world that notions of a global energy transition and net-zero emissions are myths. They are some of the biggest lies in history.

    Dr Mamdouh G Salameh
    International Oil Economist
    Global Energy Expert
  • Jeffrey K. on May 28 2023 said:
    The EU elite’s plans to go green are also losing popular appeal at the ballot box. Voters are balking. So it’s not set in stone, plus Africa and Latin America are growing markets for fossil fuels as the EU commits economic suicide. More excess slack to pick up by poor countries who don’t care about global elitist trends.

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