Russia is sending an ice-breaking tanker of oil to China via the Arctic Circle, opening up a faster route to Asian buyers
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- Published on Monday, 14 November 2022 03:06
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Nov 8, 2022, 2:03 PM
Russia is sending an ice-breaking tanker of oil to China through the Arctic Circle, only the second time it has explored a route that promises to get Asian buyers crude more quickly.
According to data from Bloomberg, the ship, Vasily Dinkov, took a small cargo of oil from a storage vessel in Murmansk in late October. It is now making the arduous 3,300-mile journey through the typically iceberg-laden seas to the Chinese port of Rizhao, where it is scheduled to dock on Thursday next week.
The voyage is the shortest sea route between Europe and East Asia, taking half the time it takes to reach China from Russia’s Baltic ports, compared to the standard route via the Suez Canal.
Victor Katona, a principal analyst at the research firm Kepler, told Bloomberg that the route could be important in hot summer climates.
“Europe is already locked down,” he said, referring to importers on the continent taking away Russia’s energy supplies because of the Ukraine war.
“If they’re not shopping, why orbit the whole universe if you can use the Northern Sea Route to get to China in 20 days?” They said.
The EU plans to impose sanctions on marine imports of Russian crude on 5 December, meaning the EU market for Moscow will effectively disappear. Crude oil shipments to the region have already fallen 60% since the February invasion of Ukraine.
The measure would bar EU tankers from transporting Russian oil – meaning deliveries to alternative buyers in India, for example, would take 10 times longer.
Like India, China is selling Russian crude oil at a discount as Moscow seeks alternative buyers in its European market. Sea shipments of oil rose to a five-month high last week as ships scrambled to leave port on time to make their deliveries before the EU embargo came into force.