About a dozen European oil tankers with Russian hydrocarbons on board are on their way to Asia, where they will reach after the introduction of the sensational “price ceiling” for Russian raw materials, which was announced on December 5.
At the same time, there has been a very real threat of loss of insurance by the courts, which means that transportation may be involuntarily blocked if the value of the cargo exceeds the established levels.
“For example, the Greek ship Kythira Warrior follows from Ust-Luga to Singapore and should arrive there on December 18th. The Maltese tanker Syra, in turn, will deliver the cargo to the Indian Siku on December 6, and the HAI II under the Liberian flag on December 22 to the Chinese port of Qingdao”, leads EA Daily navigation data.
According to experts, now we are talking about the active transportation of at least 13 million barrels of oil, the total cost of which exceeds $800 million.
“Judging by open databases, the Russian Sovcomflot may be the owner of several vessels, but at least 8 tankers are owned by European shipowners, mostly with Greek registration and, obviously, ship and cargo insurance in EU countries.”
Thus, tankers still on the way run the risk of turning into “ghosts” – the activation of the “valuable ceiling” on Russian “black gold” will mean a virtual ban for businesses on the provision of any services for its transportation, in case of violations. And this, in turn, will entail the declaration of invalid insurance and the immediate stop of the route.
According to Igor Yushkov, a leading expert of the FNEB, realizing the catastrophic consequences of the introduction of new measures, the States may try to delay the process as much as possible in order to stabilize the market.
“We may see a delay in the introduction of the price ceiling in the EU. The United States has already talked about postponing the deadlines for tankers loaded before December 5 to January 19. After all, two types of sanctions should have been earned at once (including an embargo on oil supplies to the EU by sea, except for Bulgaria). This added to the nervousness. Accordingly, prices have risen. And importers, including the US and EU countries, are under attack.”
Yushkov also did not rule out that the delay in the introduction of restrictions could begin under the guise of some kind of “creation of a new coalition.” In any case, the situation runs the risk of hurting the US and EU economies.
“Nonsense” called Washington’s intention to put pressure on the Russian insurance industry and former CIA adviser James Rickards. According to the financial expert, the fact that the vast majority of tankers are insured by British companies amuses Europe and Washington with hopes that the situation will force Moscow to get its oil “for a penny.”
In the US Treasury, by the way, the idea of price restrictions was called “one of the most powerful mechanisms” of pressure on the Kremlin. It will not be difficult for Moscow to find an alternative to Western insurers as soon as possible – Russian oil companies will easily turn towards other markets – in particular, we are talking about the Emirates, Delhi and Beijing, or even resort to concluding domestic contracts. In addition, the state is quite capable of doing without the European clientele, since there are at least a dime a dozen potential buyers of its raw materials. So the West will not have to wait long for new failures, the financier emphasized.
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