- Russia has been exporting an increasing amount of oil labeled “Destination Unknown” since invading Ukraine.
- So far in April, more than 11.1 million barrels have been loaded onto cargoes of unknown destination, compared to almost zero before the war.
- Analysts told The Wall Street Journal the practice was a way to disguise the origin of the oil.
Loading Something is loading.
More and more Russian oil exports are being labeled as “unknown destination” as the industry looks for ways to continue doing business with Moscow during the war against Ukraine.
According to the Wall Street Journal, which cited data from TankerTrackers.com, more than 11.1 million barrels have been loaded onto cargoes of unknown destination so far in April, compared to almost zero before the invasion.
Analysts told the Journal the practice signals that Russian oil is being offloaded at sea onto larger ships and mixed with that tanker’s crude oil, thereby obscuring the origin of the export.
New grades of oil are now on the market, dubbed “Latvian blend” and “Turkmen blend,” which contain significant amounts of Russian oil, traders told the Journal.
While the European Union is discussing a full embargo on Russian oil, it has yet to be directly sanctioned. And exports to EU member states rebounded this month after falling in March.
But some oil companies have “sanctioned themselves” anyway to avoid the reputational risk of doing business with Russia. Earlier this month, Ukrainian Presidential Advisor Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the Financial Times that traders trading Moscow’s oil are “helping Russia get this blood money.”
Meanwhile, Russian exports to Asia and the Mediterranean picked up in April, Bloomberg reported, although Russia had to send its tankers much further afield to reach buyers. Price-sensitive buyers from China and India snapped up discounted Russian oil.
For its part, the US just posted its highest-ever weekly export of oil products as it helps replace Russia’s oil supply. In the week ended April 15, US oil and petroleum exports reached a record 10.6 million barrels per day. In the same week, Russian oil exports fell 25% from the previous week.