While governments across the globe condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine, imposing sanctions and scrambling for new sources of oil supply, Russian shipments booked under term contracts continue to discharge into foreign terminals, and ports in the U.K. are no exception.
Shipments of Russian oil totaling just shy of 2 million barrels and worth around 220 million pounds sterling ($276 million) have been exported to the U.K. since the war in Ukraine began more than two months ago, according to data from the environmental campaign group Greenpeace U.K.
A total of eight tankers have delivered shipments of Russian oil to the U.K. since Russia first invaded Ukraine on February 24. Another tanker, the Seychelles Prelude, is currently anchored at Immingham on the east coast of England after being loaded with 33,000 metric tons of diesel at the Russian Baltic port of Primorsk, according to Greenpeace. The U.K. currently relies on Russia for 8% of oil and 18% of diesel imports, it said in a statement on April 27.
"This war has cost at least 2,000 civilian lives so far," said Georgia Whitaker, oil and gas campaigner at Greenpeace U.K., citing United Nations data. "Despite the mounting death toll, the U.K. government has given itself until the end of the year to stop importing Russia's bloody oil."
The U.K. government banned Russian-owned and Russian-flagged vessels from the country's ports after the invasion of Ukraine. Although the government has pledged to stop imports of Russian diesel by the end of the year, until then analysts and market sources expect deliveries to continue to head to Europe in accordance with the terms of agreements negotiated prior to the invasion.
Diesel shipments from Primorsk are expected to climb in April to 1.56 million mt, according to port agent sources. That's 82,800 mt higher than March volumes, data compiled by OPIS show. For comparison, the average monthly export volume in 2021 was around 1.40 million mt. Much of this can still go into Europe under previously negotiated term agreements prior to the invasion, one diesel market source in the region told OPIS in March.
As of April 28, member countries of the European Union had yet to fully agree on a total ban of Russian oil imports. EU officials are currently in the process of drafting a series of proposals on a phaseout of Russian imports, including establishing a transition period.
About 3 million b/d of Russian oil output could be shut in from April onward as sanctions begin to bite and exports are shunned across the globe, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said March 16.
Before it invaded Ukraine, Russia exported about 5 million b/d of crude oil and 3 million b/d of products, according to IEA data. Pipeline shipments to the European Union, China and Belarus will continue, the agency said in March, accounting for about 1.9 million b/d, while Russian refineries in Europe would continue to take an additional 500,000 b/d of seaborne Russian crude. A total of 1.5 million b/d in Russian crude exports could be disrupted by importers finding alternative sources, the IEA said.
Meanwhile, some 5.3 million people have fled Ukraine since February 24, according to data from the UN refugee agency, UNHCR published on April 27. That's an increase of 52,452 displaced persons in the latest 24-hour period, the data show.
For its part, the U.K. continues to put pressure on Russia with sanctions. The government has banned all new outward investment into Russia, put asset freezes on 18 major Russian banks and barred over 3 million Russian companies from raising money on its capital markets, U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a statement April 26.
Environmental campaigners continue to press their case, however.
"Sanctions don't work until they're implemented, and eight more months of oil and gas imports is eight months too many," said Greenpeace's Whitaker. "It's clear we need an explicit and immediate ban on all Russian fossil fuels."
--Reporting by Rob Sheridan, rsheridan@opisnet.com
--Editing by Anthony Lane, alane@opisnet.com
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