BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 9. The EU-imposed sanctions had little impact on Russia's oil exports so far, The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said, Trend reports via EIA's latest oil market report.
According to the previous outlook, EIA expected the EU approved price cap of $60 per barrel for Russia’s oil supplies, which came in force from December 5, to affect Russian crude production, and, thus, exports.
"We assess that Russia’s crude oil exports rose in January after a brief decline in December and have since begun to surpass November totals, with little impact to Russia’s crude oil production," EIA said.
Thus, the current forecast for Russian oil production is as follows: decrease to 9.9 million b/d in 2023 from more than 10.9 million b/d in 2022, and then to an average of 9.8 million b/d in 2024.
"For both 2023 and 2024, we forecast about 0.4 million b/d more production in Russia than in last month’s STEO," EIA said.
As the outlook noted, the EU’s ban on the import of seaborne petroleum products from Russia, which began on February 5, may be more crucial than the ban imposed in December.
"We assume Russia will be able to reroute some of its petroleum exports subject to EU sanctions. But we do not expect all of its refined product exports will find new destinations because of limited clean tanker availability, which will cause refiners in Russia to reduce crude oil inputs and for Russia’s crude oil production to decline," EIA added.