Oil processing has intensified in Russia, jumping in the past week to reach close to the highest daily refining runs in more than eight months, Bloomberg reported on Monday, citing sources.
According to a person familiar with the matter, the country’s refineries processed around 5.65 million barrels of crude a day from December 14 to 20. The figure is down by around 50,000 barrels per day (bpd) from the previous seven days, when average daily refinery runs hit the highest since early April.
Bloomberg calculations show that Russian daily crude refining in the first 20 days of December averaged around 5.57 million bpd, up almost 60,000 bpd on most of November.
Meanwhile, tanker-tracking data reportedly shows that Russia’s daily overseas crude supplies in the global market decreased to 3.18 million bpd in the week to December 17 as a result of a brief pause in shipments from the Baltic Port of Primorsk. “Still, the less volatile four-week average increased by 80,000 barrels a day,” Bloomberg wrote.
Russia has been diversifying its energy supplies in response to Western sanctions since the EU stopped accepting the country’s oil transported by sea. In February, Moscow pledged to voluntarily reduce oil production by 500,000 bpd starting from March. The move came in response to sanctions, while Russia also halted sales to buyers that comply with a Western-imposed price cap of $60 per barrel.
Along with its OPEC+ allies, Moscow has also agreed to slash combined crude and petroleum exports by 300,000 barrels a day through the rest of the year, and to deepen the curbs by another 200,000 barrels per day in the first quarter of 2024.
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