Kremlin may lose up to 20% of oil exports because of US sanctions

The Russian Federation expects that the shutdown of its plants due to the latest US sanctions will not have a major impact on global markets but will significantly reduce Russia's revenue.

Source: Kommersant, a Russian news outlet

Details: The sanctions will hit Russia's oil and gas sector. The sanctions list includes several dozen entities of Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegas.

In recent months, Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegas have accounted for up to 20% of Russia's oil exports. Surgutneftegas shipped about 1.9 to 2.2 million tonnes per month, while Gazprom Neft shipped 1.6 to 1.8 million tonnes.

The sanctions were imposed on the Moscow oil refinery and Russia's largest Omsk oil refinery. This also concerned Gazprom Neft Shelf, owner of the licence to explore and produce hydrocarbons on the Prirazlomnoye field, which is the only field on the Russian Arctic shelf that has been put into operation. The sanctions list also includes Surgutneftegas' Kirishi refinery, one of the largest in Russia, Surgutneftegasbank and other entities of the oil company.

Russia believes that there will be problems with the growth of discounts on oil and oil products, an increase in freight rates due to the shortage of "clean" tankers, and with payment.

"Today's package of sanctions is the result of the US government's efforts, on the one hand, to quantitatively expand sanctions against major exporting companies, and on the other hand, to inflict perhaps even more sensitive blows on the established financial, legal and logistics infrastructure," said Andrei Ryabinin, partner at Delcredere, a Russian law firm.

Due to the sanctions, all transactions with Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegas must cease by 27 February.

The US also recently added two operating Russian LNG plants, Novatek's Vysotsk LNG plant (with a capacity of 660,000 tonnes per annum) and Gazprombank's Portovaya LNG plant (with a capacity of 1.5 million tonnes per annum), to the sanctions list for the first time.

Kommersant compares this situation to the Arctic LNG-2 plant, which is mostly owned by Novatek. Sanctions have completely stopped its operation.

According to Kommersant, citing estimates by independent expert Alexander Sobko, the combined annual revenue of Vysotsk and Portovaya LNG plants from LNG sales could reach US$1.3 billion for 2.2 million tonnes of LNG exported by the sites.

The expert notes that such volumes are significant for the global market, but in the long run, their shutdown will not lead to a crisis due to the availability of alternative large capacities worldwide: the large 14 million tonne Plaquemines LNG plant in the US and LNG Canada.

Background: Due to the new US sanctions against the Russian oil sector, Gazprom Neft has been given 45 days to withdraw from ownership of the Serbian oil company NIS.

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