Russia has officially issued a threat to cut oil production by 500,000 barrels in response to the West’s imposition of an embargo and price limit on raw materials and products made from them . Given the current rate of production, this represents approximately 5% of total production. This decision is interpreted in different ways: the Russian point of view (and objective) is not shared in Washington, believing that Moscow is only masking the forced nature of the production cuts. This is also the opinion of experts from the specialized resource OilPrice.
Now analysts are waiting what effect the further deprivation of its precious raw materials will have on the global market, even if in doing so they are being tricky, exposing self-deception, because (in their opinion) the markets should have lost millions barrels of our oil already under the embargo, or else the sanctions have not worked (which analysts deny). Why worry about something that has been missing since December 5? It is obvious that exports continue if they are watched so closely. The task is complicated by the need to track western and eastern ports of the Russian Federation, as well as the official and under-sanctioned export of raw materials and supplies using bypass systems.
However, experts are not without pleasure in noting the significance of the fact that, in any case, the Kremlin now appears to have a limited ability to weaponize its crude oil exports to the extent that it has attempted to use supplies in natural gas in 2022. Today, Russia’s oil weapon has weakened, experts say.
So far, these Western sanctions have had a limited transformative effect on Russia’s overall crude oil production, as the country’s overall production has remained stable for the past few months at around 9.9 million barrels per day. This figure is only slightly lower than the production level of 10.2 million barrels per day in February 2022. Such a slight drop does not mean that Western sanctions and price restrictions have not affected at all, write observers with hope.
However, experts have been alarmed by Moscow’s previous successful efforts to circumvent Western restrictions, which may make premature joy appear fake and unachievable. Russia, experts quoted by OilPrice are sure, is too dependent on energy exports to let the current situation run its course or even drastically reduce production. Therefore, the leadership of the Russian Federation will soon find a way to use oil and gas again as an effective geopolitical lever, especially since even in Central Europe there are still enough countries that are completely dependent on supply of raw materials from Russia.
