In an Easter Sunday interview in 20+ Polish papers [POLISH & ENGLISH below], I said White House reasons for Ukraine not to hit Russian refineries don’t make sense. The “elephant in the room” alarming DC is that Ukraine can now disrupt Primorsk, UST-Luga and Novorossiskya oil ports, needed for 60% of Russian exports.
This would not only deny Moscow vital oil revenues needed to wage war, it would also spark a spectacular global oil market shock. I explain that the USA and allies can urgently prepare for this, while the Ukrainians are still maintaining strategic patience.
According to energy and geopolitics expert Tom O’Donnell, Ukrainian allies’ oil price cap, in conjunction with Ukrainian drones’ physical damage could be a significant hit to Russian revenues.
Tom O’Donnell, PhD, an expert on energy and geopolitics, sat down with Kyiv Post to explain what Ukraine’s attacks on Russia’s energy sector will mean for the larger Russian energy sector.
It sounds like a huge number. But how much do you think losing 12 percent of production, in a day, will affect Russia?
First off, although these refineries hit by Ukrainian drones yesterday represent about 12 percent of Russian production, experience shows that they might not each be totally impaired from production. Nevertheless, there are two particularly significant implications for Russia.
First, whatever percentage of Russian refined oil products this impairs, the damage will both deprive the war economy of needed export revenues and/or of much-needed fuels to keep the domestic war economy running.
Already, Russia had announced it will ban the export of gasoline from March 1 in order to tame prices for consumers in the runup to the presidential elections mid-month. In 2023 about 17 percent of Russian gasoline was exported.
What is the origin of the current price pressure?
The present price pressure is both a result of the demands of the war economy as well as previously successful Ukrainian hits on other refineries that began in January.
This gets to my second point – the successful refinery strikes of yesterday, involving a reported launch of 58 drones, as well as recent hits on a Russian domestic gas transmission pipeline, all demonstrate that the January successes were not one-off special operations, but rather the beginning of what will be a sustained Ukraine armed forces campaign capable of, over time, significantly disrupting Russia’s all-important oil and gas import revenues and internal refined-product supplies.
Kyiv has launched some of its largest air attacks on Russia this week ahead of the vote, which is set to hand President Vladimir Putin another six-year term in the Kremlin.
If Russia continues to lose refineries, which appears likely, what new complications will it create for Russia?
First, from a strategic point of view, it is important to see these physical strikes against Russian oil and gas infrastructure in conjunction with the sanctions efforts of the USA, EU and other allies aimed at reducing Russian oil profits. These drone strikes should be seen as a “force multiplier” to allied oil sanctions.
How so?
Consider that, with Russia no longer having the Druzba oil pipeline flowing into Central Europe due to EU sanctions, this has forced it to shift its Urals-region oil exports to seaports on the Baltic coast of Russia and to a new western-Arctic port. Hence, hitting any refining or export facilities inside Russia along this general Urals-oil export corridor has a significant effect on Russia sustaining export revenues. This oil mainly flows to Turkey, India and China, with Russian oil tankers representing the main users of the Suez and then the Red Sea. Due to sanctions, most of these ships are now either directly or indirectly Russian-controlled, to avoid the sanctions oil-price cap.
There has been a discussion in US-EU security-and-sanctions circles that these ships could be stopped for inspection by Sweden and/or Denmark in the Baltic, in the straights between their countries, and many might be refused passage due to having sketchy insurance and/or being unsafe, old vessels.
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What do you think of the oil price cap? Is it a good idea?
From the point of view of strategic impact, the allies’ choice of an oil-price cap has been, in my view, a weak and overly complex-to-enforce instrument. However, in conjunction with Ukrainian drones’ physical damage, the overall hit to Russian revenues might become significant.
Secondly, Ukraine has also hit refineries in Russia just east of its own territory, which will mainly undermine the region’s war economy and complicate supplying the massive demand from Russia’s invasion forces. This region already has chronic fuel-supply problems, with farmers last year protesting against a lack of diesel for harvests, causing Russia to ban diesel exports during that season.
Dr. Tom O’Donnell is Berlin-based and is a Global Fellow of the Wilson Center.
Jason Jay Smart, Ph.D., is a political adviser who has lived and worked in Ukraine, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Latin America. Due to his work with the democratic opposition to Pres. Vladimir Putin, Smart was persona non grata, for life, by Russia in 2010. His websites can be found at http://www.JasonJaySmart.com / http://www.AmericanPoliticalServices.com / fb.com/jasonjaysmart / Twitter: @OfficeJJSmart
Related references for assertions I made in my interview – Tom O’D.
Berlin Energy Roudtable. L to R: Ben Aris, Tom O’Donnell, Morten Frisch & Andriy Kobolyev (video link from Kyiv) 24 October 2023, Haus der Bunderpresskonferenz – PHOTO GALLERY BELOW(Divan staff)
On 24 October, I was honored to moderate a great roundtable in Berlin with three European energy experts, sponsored by Der Divan Kulturehaus. SUGGESTION: While listening, open up that speaker’s file below. You’ll find Ben Aris’ data-slides on Russian price-cap failings, Andriy Kobolyev’s proposal to tax Moscow’s oil & Morten Frisch’s slides on EU renewable shortcomings & continued oil and gas needs.
[02.10.23 Note: Some typos/syntax corrected. Somehow could not edit w/ my phone yesterday.]
–1– The Saudis have no intention to spike oil price over $100/barrel, at least not for long – that’s my read.
Their customers’ economies are troubled, especially China, but Europe too – where too-high-an-oil-price could re-boost inflation, even push them into recession(s) killing oil demand.
Over the last year, the Saudi’s were newly proactive (their traditional mode was always to react after-the-fact). And their economists’ market calls were correct.
For several months, OPEC+ cumulative production cuts barely held prices stable. Only in recent months, along with new (though tepid) demand, did prices climb, form high-$80s to now mid $90s.
The Saudi minister professes to be unsure whether demand will rise in Q4. The IEA and the futures market (in backwardian now) see tightness. The Saudi minister answers that, if that happens, he has plenty of oil ready to put back into markets.
But – Nota Bene – despite present drawdowns in USA oil stocks and apparent tightness elsewhere, suddenly many oil analysts are saying that the present price rally could be short lived, and that OPEC-plus may have to keep or even deepen its cuts to maintain prices as they are.
Here are three very useful reports to this effect:
Today (Mon., 12.09.23; 12:16 CET) EuroNews-Serbia interviewed me (Video has English audio-overlay). I explained:
Saudi logic for cutting, with Russia, about 125 million barrels from the market so far, and by the end of 2023 some 245 million barrels [1] is its prediction of soft demand due to China’s slow recovery and somewhat the EU too; plus the Saudi minister points to central banks continuing to fight inflation with high rates.
However, the IEA disagrees, seeing a shortage of supply in Q4. I added that the market is in backwardian, and so agrees with IEA.
My assessment:
Price over $100 is likely this year; it is after all fairly close now, in the 90’s.
I answered a question about who gets hurt the most from high prices.
It is the countries who do not produce oil and are relatively poor. So, mainly some states in Asia and So. Asia, Africa and Latin America.
As for Europe, rising oil price will be somewhat inflationary; especially hitting Eastern Europe, where inflation is generally still a greater problem.
However, I pointed out that compared to historical peaks in 2008-09 and 2010-11, $100 or even $125/bbl or even higher prices are needed to begin approaching the REAL price of oil back in those cases.
So, $100 oil is now not so inflationary as it was back then (and in general oil is not as inflationary as it was in the last century, because economies have larger service and knowledge sectors that are not as strongly affected by fuel prices as manufacturing and chemical industries.
I also explained that the Russian oil price cap sanctions have actually “put money in the pockets” of people in poorer states, as its enforcement meant that Russia, while still selling its oil, has been forced to sell it cheaper.
In particular, up till the start of last month (start of Sept), Russia was losing about half the revenues it would have ordinarily made on its oil exports. (This can be seen on a chart recently released by the USA Treasury Department. [3])
However, as a higher percentage of its oil (about 75% now) is sold via tankers that are not owned or insured by the EU or UK , it can be sold at higher prices without falling under the price cap enforcement mechanism. This higher price is, then, also now contributing to the higher price of oil on the global market. [2]
Video: My answers in English; Host’s questions in Arabic.
Tom O’Donnell, on Asharq, 28 Jan 23. Written explanations of my answers are below.
Note: Questions in Arabic; my responses in English.
I explained how the crude oil cap is thus far successful. This bodes well for the products’ cap effectiveness.
The market situation is relatively favorable for application of EU sanctions on all Russian refined products on 5 February. Demand is still soft as Europe, even if it is not going into recession, and it is coming out of an unusually war winter that also softened demand. Also, China is not yet roaring back from its COVID reopening attempts.
The title and brief interview is rather self-explanatory. The interview starts after a brief intro, after 30 seconds.
Thanks to Daniel Winters, German national broadcaster Deutsche Welle’s (DW.de) English language Business News host for this invitation. We spoke, in Berlin, only a few hours after the cap was announced in Moscow.
Al Jazeera asked for an online commentary within an hour of Putin’s announcement. These were my initial thoughts.
I also spoke to AJ Arabic, and a couple hours later, on Germany’s Deutsche Welle’s English language service elaborated on these points (see video, next blog post).
The question is where will the EU-USA-g7 western alliance go from here. If they stepwise lower the cap, and also work hard to get new oil online (from OPEC and the USA), they can gradually keep lowering Russia’s market share. However, as I indicated, the coming recession – esp. in Europe – and the uncertainties of Chinese demand as it exits COVID shutdowns in early 2023, complicate calculations of whether the globala oil market will be short or long on supplies and if the price will spike or not. I said this will be “a chess game.”
This interview (Arabic video; English audio above) was recorded the evening of 29nov22 as the EU struggled over how low to set the price cap.
Soon, it will be agreed, and will gradually become devastating for Russia.
As new non-Russian oil resources are developed (e.g., in Guyana, Suriname, UAE, Iraqi and other fields) and/or oil fields come back online (e.g., Venezuela, Libya, …), the EU and G7 will feel confident to further lower the price further and further below the price of Brent and WTI crude.
The Global Barrel 