BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 30. Russia's crude oil exports decreased to 4.75 mb/d in February 2024, after reaching a peak of 5 mb/d in December 2023, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said, Trend reports.
According to the agency, this decline was evenly split between exports via pipelines and those shipped by sea. Shipments to China increased by 100,000 b/d to 2.2 mb/d, matching the levels seen in November.
However, this number might be higher since about 350,000 b/d of shipments currently have no set destination, the IEA noted. Similarly, crude oil exports to India dropped by 420,000 b/d compared to the previous month, reaching 1.2 mb/d.
At the same time, Russian oil tankers continue to dominate the route from North to South in the Red Sea. Shipments decreased by about 250,000 b/d in January and might have dropped even more in February due to ongoing attacks by Houthi rebels on ships in the Bab el Mandeb Strait. The cost of shipping Urals crude oil from Primorsk to the west coast of India has stayed steady at around $12 per barrel since mid-November. In February, product exports remained mostly unchanged compared to the previous month. Around 800,000 b/d of exports still don't have a set destination.
While shipments of light products like LPG, naphtha, and gasoil decreased, there was a notable increase in fuel oil exports and unsplit NGLs from Ust Luga. This increase followed an attack on Novatek's splitter in late January, which disrupted operations. The shift from light products to fuel exports might be due to recent attacks on Russian refineries in Ukraine. Since the third quarter of 2023, about half of Russian product exports have gone to destinations East of Suez, with the rest divided roughly equally between Africa, Latin America, and Türkiye.
The average prices for Russian product exports compared to Urals in the Baltic Sea mostly followed the trends in international markets. However, there was little change in the cracks for Russian vacuum gasoil (VGO), possibly due to issues with local conversion units.