The giant Jamnagar refinery on India’s west coast imported 215 shipments of crude oil and fuel oil from Russia during 2022, four times as much in volume as it bought in 2021, Kpler data analysed by Global Witness shows.
At the same time, the UK has imported 29 shipments, or 10m barrels, of diesel and other refined products from Jamnagar since the war began, compared to seven shipments, or 4m barrels, during 2021. Buyers include Shell, BP, Trafigura, PetroChina and Essar.
Refineries tend to import from several sources and mix fuels together, meaning crude oil from Russia is likely to have been used to make diesel exported from India to the UK, though it is not possible to say for certain exactly what goes into each barrel.
This, by and large, replacing the diesel we used to buy directly from Russia.
The owners of the refinery are cackling with delight of course. Russian crude sells for a very considerable discount. That diesel is at full market prices.
“Russian crude sells for a very considerable discount.”
The whole idea of fungibility makes me think that the Russians aren’t really getting just that discounted price, that it’s being partially made up on the side somehow. Are the sanctions so tightly (and competently) enforced that the Russians are accepting the official discounted price? I’d bet the refinery wants that Russian crude enough to work something out. Maybe not full price, but Russia doesn’t usually leave so much on the table just because a Biden says so.
@ bobby b
Part of the discount on Russian oil is the difference between cif and fob when they are shipping it to Europe via the Indian Ocean.
Of course another part is the profit margin for Jamnagar which could include a kick-back to the guys at Rosneft or whichever.
Jamnagar supplies 1% of UK diesel, which I find mildly surprising since shipping costs means that we must be one of the least profitable (for Jamnagar) customers.
So we(the Western public) are being f*cked over by high fuel prices, while still buying Russian oil, just via plausibly deniable routes that allow our ‘betters’ to claim we’re ‘doing something’ about the Ukraine invasion. What a f*cking joke. We ought to be demanding our rulers heads on pikes.
Couldn’t have put it better Jim.
Are the sanctions so tightly (and competently) enforced
On Russia? No, how could they be? Most countries outside the G7 and EU aren’t cooperating.
I don’t think anyone expects sanctions to “work” on Russia (i.e. change their foreign policy or their government) at this point. They are working very effectively on Europe tho, which used to sneer and laugh at Donald Trump for telling them to pay their NATO dues and buy expensive Yank LNG instead of cheap Russian fuel.
OG neocons Condi and Robert Gates put it this way in the Washington Post:
Ukraine’s economy is in a shambles, millions of its people have fled, its infrastructure is being destroyed, and much of its mineral wealth, industrial capacity and considerable agricultural land are under Russian control.
Naturally, they’re arguing that we should keep digging. Rishi’s going to send them some Challenger 2 tanks next. We’re vaguely escalating towards… something.
Most likely a Kabul-style cut and run, after Kiev can no longer continue to prosecute the war. But potentially a direct confrontation with the
Red ArmyRussian armed forces, which would be spicy indeed.I have to admit to a sneaking suspicion that the higher energy prices in the West are actually desired by the governments thereof – it makes it far easier to push through ‘green’ nonsense as they can say (lying of course) that its all to ‘solve’ the problem. So they don’t care that Russian oil is being sold to the West via third party actors, because its helping their real aim – the impoverishment and enslavement of their entire populations via controls on energy usage and availability.
I don’t see the problem – the green blob sells the fiction of “100% renewable energy” coming out of my sockets when it is obviously (well, to those who have a couple of functioning brain cells) a soupcon of renewables mixed in with all the evil, dangerous, oil, coal and gas fossil fuels, so it must be OK to buy barrels of ‘oil’ from an Indian company if there are a couple of pints of Venezuelan or Nigerian oil in there too, making it, miraculously, not ‘Russian’ Oil.
a fairly good example of the extensive costs of being woke, although of course it is not just the woke who get to pay for it!
Jim – they’ve always wanted to make energy scarce, that’s the whole point of the Climate Change Act.
I assume they’re more bumbling fools than Machiavellian geniuses tho. Tbf, the general public isn’t hard to trick, most of them are window licking morons who would happily superglue a Covid mask to their bumhole if the NHS told them to do it.
Posh toughie Tobias Ellwood (Con, Ponce) seems to be exorcising his childhood demons via therapeutic multibillion pound weapons shipments to Kiev:
Chair of the Defence Select Committee Tobias Ellwood said he welcomed the UK “getting serious about the hardware it supplies Ukraine”, but that international assistance had been “far too slow”.
He told BBC Breakfast: “That’s exactly what Russia wants us to do – to remain hesitant.
“Unless we step forward and support Ukraine, Russia will not go away – and that will mean the bully has won.”
Sadly, bullies often win (ask the many shithole countries we’ve bombed since 1999), and it’s very likely the 14 tanks and 30 self propelled guns we’re sending this time will quickly become expensive scrap. But with what – 130,000 Ukrainians now dead? something like that – we probably passed the “throwing good money after bad” stage a while back.
It’s definitely “hurting” Russia, from the POV that Russian troops are dying, they are expending kit and materiel at a very expensive rate, and the Russian economy is looking at recession. That’s the peg the Conservative Toughies are hanging their Union Jack flag on, but I’m old enough to remember when we fought wars with the intention of damaging the enemy more than we damage ourselves, and in pursuit of some kind of definable advantage for Britain.
Russia exists in some kind of weird Twilight Zone where they’re simultaneously an intolerable threat to world peace, yet so weak we don’t need to take them seriously by actually fighting them ourselves. It’s odd, but it makes more sense in the context of the broader (attempted) decoupling from China and the US’s desire to continue being the world’s undisputed Daddy country.
the US’s desire to continue being the world’s undisputed Daddy country. And long may it continue. As least worst options go, American hegemony is infinitely preferable to the alternatives, ie:
China: an aggressive, fascist, authoritarian power governed by an organisation which has murdered 50 million of its own within living memory. And it isn’t nearly so fond of the rest of us.
Russia: a basket-case largely-pissed kleptocracy run by a paranoid nutter with loads of nukes.
The EU: a hodgepodge of wealthy nation states run (badly) for the benefit of fat German industrialists.
I jest of course, Russia and the EU don’t have a chance of dominating anything.
MC – American hegemony is infinitely preferable to the alternatives
Definitely, up till 1991. Now? The Davos jamboree really should tell you all you need to know about their vision of the future, assuming you didn’t already know about their forever wars, relentless bombing campaigns, rigged elections, infinity migration, and determination to turn your children into homosexual transsexuals.
It’s not a pretty picture.
Thankfully, the US is in over $30 trillion of debt (and counting), so I don’t think Pax Americana is long for this world. But it would be naive to assume its replacement will be “better”.
“I assume they’re more bumbling fools than Machiavellian geniuses tho.”
I quite agree, but they are sharp enough to spot a good thing when they see it. I’m not saying that the whole ‘sanction Russia’ idea was a big conspiracy theory to drive up Western energy prices purely to then impose Net Zero type ‘solutions’, however I would say that having done the sanctioning bit for entirely legitimate reasons (arguably) they have now realised that driving up energy price just happens to help their Net Zero fantasy project as well. So there is no incentive to do anything that would allow energy prices to fall back. Either by searching for a negotiated solution to the Ukraine problem, or to care about sanctions busting by the likes of China and India. Indeed the sanctions busting is a win/win really – it ensures that supplies keep flowing to the West, so there is never a massive ‘Shit we’ve no petrol/diesel’ moment, but at a suitably high price.
All the incentives are now to keep the current situation exactly as it is indefinitely. The Western governments because it aids their Net Zero project, the sanctions busters because they are making out like bandits, the Russians because they are still selling their oil, the Americans because they are selling their oil and gas, their military industrial complex is humming nicely supplying Ukraine, their foreign competitors are being slowly degraded (Russian geopolitically and the EU/Germany economically). Everyone’s a winner, apart from Joe Public in Europe (and to a lesser degree in the US).
bobby b
I’d bet the refinery wants that Russian crude enough to work something out.
Why would you make that bet when the information is in the quoted article? The refinery imported four times as much at the discounted sanctions price than they did at Imperial Vlad prices. They obviously want it because its cheap – they’re not looking for secret ways to pay more.
The world oil price is now lower than before the Russian invasion, and the Telegraph article doesn’t mention the just-introduced shipping insurance ban on Russian oil costing more than $60 a barrel. So, local variance notwithstanding (see climate twattery), we’re paying less for oil while the Russians are having to fleece themselves to pay for Putins stupid war. Which is why they’re now looking at increasing taxes on their creaking economy just to carry on.
I’d still be tempted to encourage China to take a crack at their long disputed border with India. It would point their nationalism away from our interests, and we’d get to laugh like kookaburras at India’s imploring requests for sanctions support.
Marvellous holiday a while back. Nice gardens and wine cellars – cathedral has wonderful carved wooden ceiling.
Steve
– On Russia? No, how could they be? Most countries outside the G7 and EU aren’t cooperating.
The sanction on Russian oil is that it doesn’t sell above $60 a barrel. Urals is currently at $50. Sanctions busting is overblown; Russia is bleeding.
– I don’t think anyone expects sanctions to “work” on Russia (i.e. change their foreign policy or their government) at this point.
Sanctions plus Russian military failure will change their policy. The Russians have a demonstrated capacity for losing abroad pragmatically. They know Russia isn’t threatened and they know they’ll be welcomed back into the shiny happy world if they behave.
– Naturally, they’re arguing that we should keep digging.
You call it digging, I call it tipping-it-in. And we should keep doing it, it’s working.
– Rishi’s going to send them some Challenger 2 tanks next. We’re vaguely escalating towards… something. – Most likely a Kabul-style cut and run, after Kiev can no longer continue to prosecute the war.
The Challengers are primarily symbolic; their purpose is to encourage the deployment of a significant number of Leopard 2s. Even that’s mostly a political sign to Russia but those MBTs and the Bradleys will make a dent if used well in conjunction with the vast numbers of Russian donations which have now been properly serviced and are coming on line. Your assessment of Kyiv’s capability (they have millions of men and our support) might be as accurate as your assessment of Moscow’s prowess.
Those looking to cut and run from Ukraine are you and your ilk.
PJF – The world oil price is now lower than before the Russian invasion, and the Telegraph article doesn’t mention the just-introduced shipping insurance ban on Russian oil costing more than $60 a barrel. So, local variance notwithstanding (see climate twattery), we’re paying less for oil while the Russians are having to fleece themselves to pay for Putins stupid war. Which is why they’re now looking at increasing taxes on their creaking economy just to carry on.
Yarp, that’s the sales pitch: never mind our own economy burning down around our ears, and definitely don’t mind all the dead Ukrainians, Russians might have to pay more than 13% income tax.
No doubt Richsputin Murphski will be wanking himself to sleep at that one, eh? Good times.
The sanction on Russian oil is that it doesn’t sell above $60 a barrel. Urals is currently at $50. Sanctions busting is overblown; Russia is bleeding.
Seems unlikely, PJF.
The sanctions were supposed to bring Russia to its knees, and quickly, as promised when they announced them. That was nearly a year ago. We’re no closer to chasing the Muscovites out of Novayarussia, but we are a lot closer to something seriously bad happening to UK plc, which is currently barely treading water in so many ways.
Russia would’ve bitten your hands off for $50/bbl not very long ago. Their production and distribution costs are considerably lower than that (onshore drilling, innit), so they’re making plenty of profit. Global commodity prices are likely to continue to fluctuate wildly, which will make the price cap look even sillier than it does now.
Even that’s mostly a political sign to Russia but those MBTs and the Bradleys will make a dent if used well in conjunction with the vast numbers of Russian donations which have now been properly serviced and are coming on line. Your assessment of Kyiv’s capability (they have millions of men and our support) might be as accurate as your assessment of Moscow’s prowess.
Yes, yes. Ukies are going to heroically chase Putin out of the former Ukraine and storm Moscow any day now, you’ll see, etc. etc.
And when they don’t – don’t worry! – the next batch of Western wunderwaffen is sure to turn back the Asiatic Horde.
Next time.
Probably.
Those looking to cut and run from Ukraine are you and your ilk.
Yarp. I’m a proud Cutter and Runner, because I know about sunk costs and how they don’t get any less sunk when you’re spending human lives.
Ukraine is not a worthwhile ally because they have nothing of value to offer us. We should never have gotten involved in their Slavic grudge match, there’s no “victory” in sight that would justify the deaths and destruction, and the best thing we could do right now is to cut our losses and theirs by no longer funding their war. Too many people have died for this pointless foolishness already, and it’s literally the last thing the world needed after the horrors of The Coof, which we will be paying for for decades.
Come to think of it, Sir Harry Paget Flashman VC, KCB, KCIE did nothing wrong.
Russia would’ve bitten your hands off for $50/bbl not very long ago. Their production and distribution costs are considerably lower than that (onshore drilling, innit), so they’re making plenty of profit.
The most recent estimates I’ve seen of extraction costs for Urals crude were $42-$47/bbl, so $50 ain’t much of a profit margin (given that energy is Russia’s principal export).
Two differently important numbers.
1) Current production costs. Leave out Capx and even any maintenance.
2) Price to run the Russian state.