The European Union has started its embargo on shipping Russian oil and gas, along with an attempt to impose a price cap. Early signs show it is having an effect:
Since the European Union imposed its seaborne crude sanctions, Russian oil exports have tumbled by more than half, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
In the week that ended December 16, which marked the first full week after the ban set in, total volumes coming out of Russia fell by 1.86 million barrels a day, or 54%, to about 1.6 million. The four-week average also dropped to a new low for 2022. Signs also pointed to a a shortage of ship owners who were willing to transport Russian oil from an export facility in Asia.
Will this persist? There may be reasons to doubt it. Earlier this week Nature magazine offered up these charts showing overall Russian oil exports up sharply from a year ago, even though European oil imports have been cut. It appears developing nations (India? China?) are happy to increase their imports Russian oil, especially at a discount.
Meanwhile, Europe is attempting to meet its natural gas needs from LNG imports, but appears still to be short of the amount it needs:
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