This is also confirmed by the fact that the US Treasury has called on the biggest oil traders to resume work with Russian oil and not be afraid to trade it. As paradoxical as it may seem, it is also an attempt to regain positions lost on the world oil market.
Now it has actually split into two independent poles. One is the G7 countries and Europe. Everything is the same here: dollars, euros, exchanges, futures, well-known insurance companies and understandable logistics in the West. The other pole is the trade in oil produced in countries under American and European sanctions, that is to say Russian, Iranian, Venezuelan. This represents more than 18% of international oil trade, and the share of raw materials coming from these countries will grow. It is Russia and Iran that have a real opportunity to significantly increase the export of their oil, and Venezuela has serious potential for this – the country is the first in the world in terms of oil reserves.
Nothing opposes these countries to the West. Only American production, but the “shale revolution” is long gone and today’s growth is too slow to claim a hegemonic role in the market. To do this, they need a strong ally who will “play by their rules”. OPEC is a clear candidate for this role, but since cajoling to increase oil production has not worked, America has now turned to threats.
According to the head of the National Energy Security Fund, Konstantin Simonov, the United States, by increasing its presence in the physical oil market, is losing its influence in the virtual market. The United States itself built and managed the entire world oil trading system, controlling it through financial instruments. But now the trade is fading into the shadows, into a “grey area” out of sight of Americans. This can be seen by the number of vessels carrying sanctioned oil, the “grey” transshipment volume, etc. This market exists according to other rules. And the goal of the United States is to keep control over the whole market, to manage it, preferably from production to sale. The latest decisions of OPEC, and even more so of OPEC+, do not fit into this American logic, so America is trying to use all means of pressure on Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – financial, economic, political and legal,” explains Simonov.
Over the past thirty years, there have been several attempts to pass NOPEC – a law prohibiting oil and export cartels, says Alexander Silakov, partner in the tax and duty practice of the Business Profile group. The last such attempt dates back to October 2022, when OPEC+ decided to cut oil production by 2 million barrels per day, despite US demands to increase it. And in March 2023, the bill is again submitted for review. But it also shouldn’t be counted on that the bill will finally be able to pass, since its passage will be followed by retaliatory measures that could further unbalance the global market, Silakov believes.
The international oil trade is increasingly moving into a “grey zone” that is not controlled by Western countries
As for the calls of the United States to exchange more Russian oil, they are also understandable. The production and export of oil in Russia after the imposition of sanctions (the ban on the import of our raw materials by the EU, the United States and Canada) not only did not decrease, but even increase. And the transition of national companies to work with local traders from the Middle East and countries of the Asia-Pacific region (APR) has removed Russian oil trade from the sphere of influence of Western countries, allowing, among other things, to abandon payments in euros and dollars in favor of national currencies.
