Poland Approves $60 G7 Oil Price Cap

Poland has agreed to a $60 price cap on Russian crude oil, Poland’s Ambassador to the EU, Andrzej Sados, said on Friday.

The EU tentatively agreed on a $60 oil cap yesterday, but analysts feared that Poland—originally holding out for a much lower price cap—would refuse to sign off on a $60 cap.

The G7 proposal to cap the price of Russian seaborne crude oil initially met resistance from Poland, Estonia, and Lithuania as those countries were hoping for a much lower cap—even a $20 or $30 cap. Because Poland’s ask was so much lower than what the EU had proposed, it was doubtful whether Poland would go along.

The window of opportunity for getting the G7 price cap fixed at a specific level was quickly coming to a close, with the price cap set to go into effect on Monday, December 5. Market uncertainty about the price cap, as

The U.S. has pushed hard for an acceptable price cap—one much higher than Poland wanted--to keep oil prices in check.

Poland agreed to the $60 cap with a caveat—the price cap also includes a mechanism for keeping the price capped at a level that is at least 5% below the market rate. The full details of the price cap plan will be published in the EU legal journal on Sunday, with all 27 EU countries now in line to officially sign onto the deal.

The price cap allows non-EU countries to continue to trade in seaborne Russian crude oil. It will however, prevent shipping and insuring—done mostly by G7 countries—unless the price at which it was purchased falls under the price cap.

By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com

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