(Feb 18): Russia has amassed new tankers and resorted to ship-to-ship cargo transfers to keep key oil exports flowing. But deliveries to customers remain a problem, with laden vessels forced to idle.

At least five tankers new to the post-sanctions trade helped boost flows from the Pacific port of Kozmino last week. Another six are anchored off the terminal waiting to load.

With new vessels also operating out of Russia’s Baltic ports, and the passing of a storm that caused disruption to flows, Moscow’s four-week average crude exports saw their biggest jump since April.

Flows in the four-week period to Feb 16 rose to 3.03 million barrels a day, up 7% from the previous week. 

Despite the jump, shippers are still struggling to offload barrels, resulting in an increased use of ship-to-ship transfers to free up specialist shuttle tankers.

Three cargoes of Sokol crude, exported from Sakhalin Island in the country’s east, were switched into the supertanker Daban near the Russian port of Nakhodka. The vessel is now anchored off the Chinese port of Yantai, but tracking shows it has yet to unload.

A fourth cargo was moved onto the Aframax tanker Urgane I. The receiving ship was identified with the assistance of Tankertrackers.com, which has been monitoring clandestine shipments using satellite data for years. 

The transfers free up vital shuttle tankers, which are keeping Sokol shipments flowing for now. More will be needed if flows are to be maintained in the coming weeks.

The Sakhalin 2 project has pulled in two new vessels, the Galaxy and the Voyager, to shift its cargoes, with its regular shuttle fleet unable to discharge in China. The first of the duo has also been sanctioned by the US.

In the West, non-sanctioned tankers are also now the norm for shipments from the Baltic ports of Primorsk and Ust-Luga, with vessels blacklisted by the US now virtually confined to hauling barrels from Murmansk. All of those that were identified in industry data as heading for India have now changed their destinations, either to North China, or to possible floating storage sites near the mouth of the Persian Gulf.

The first of those to arrive, the Meru, is now in the Gulf of Oman, a frequent location for the ship-to-ship transfer of Iranian crude and a place used in the past for similar Russian cargo movements. None of the US-sanctioned tankers hauling Russia’s Arctic crude has yet attempted to offload its cargo in India or China.

A total of 32 tankers loaded 25.02 million barrels of Russian crude in the week to Feb 16, vessel-tracking data and port-agent reports show. The volume was up from 16.1 million barrels on 21 ships the previous week.

Daily crude flows in the seven days to Feb. 16 surged by about 1.27 million barrels, or 55%, from the previous week to 3.57 million.

Shipments from Kozmino rebounded to their highest in two months after a five-day storm, with winds gusting above 40 miles an hour, prevented ships from mooring at the export berths for most of the previous week. Shipments from Ust-Luga in the Baltic also rose to a two-month high.

Less volatile four-week average flows were up by about 210,000 barrels a day from the previous week, to 3.03 million barrels a day.

One cargo of Kazakhstan’s KEBCO crude was loaded during the week from Novorossiysk.

The gross value of Moscow’s exports jumped by about US$570 million (RM2.52 billion), or 58%, to US$1.56 billion in the week to Feb 16. That’s the highest in more than three months.

Export values of Russian Urals crude little changed week-on-week, rising by less than US$0.10 a barrel. The price of key Pacific grade ESPO rose by about US$1/bbl. Delivered prices in India were up by about US$0.40, all according to numbers from Argus Media.
On a four-week average basis, income rose to about US$1.36 billion a week, from US$1.31 billion in the period to Feb 9.

Observed shipments to Russia’s Asian customers, including those showing no final destination, rose to 2.83 million barrels a day in the four weeks to Feb 16, recovering to about 7% below the average level seen during the most recent peak in October.

Turkey is now the only short-haul market for shipments from Russia’s western ports, with flows in the 28 days to Feb 16 falling to about 180,000 barrels a day, their lowest since October. Turkey’s biggest refiner is restricting its purchases of Russian oil and fuels to avoid falling foul of US sanctions.

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