Russia’s oil exports have risen for a fourth consecutive week, reports Bloomberg.
The publication notes that higher shipment volumes, combined with an increase in average prices, have pushed inflows to the Kremlin’s war fund to their highest level in nearly two months.
According to analysts’ estimates, average daily exports of Russian crude oil in the first half of February stood at 3.39 million barrels.
The key driver of the increase remains rising sales to China. Shipments of Russian oil to the PRC in the first two weeks of February climbed to 2 million barrels a day. At the same time, a growing share of Urals crude is being diverted away from recent buyers in India, which is scaling back its purchases of Russian energy. Almost the entire volume of oil shipped from Pacific and Arctic ports is also being directed to the Chinese market.
Bloomberg underscores that the increase in exports is taking place amid an intensification of Ukrainian strikes on oil refineries in Russia, as well as the suspension of pipeline supplies to Hungary and Slovakia.