With the United States banning Russia’s energy imports, Europe is weighing how far it will go to do so, according to Russian President Vladimir V. Putin said this week that Moscow should pay attention to top officials and industry representatives. Divert its energy exports “South and East” for “promising markets”
To lay out plans to expand export infrastructure to Africa, Latin America and Asia-Pacific. Putin ordered. But the only real alternative to Russia to offset losses from its largest customer so far, Europe, would be Asia – given its geographical proximity, economic growth and scarcity of natural resources, analysts say.
To increase energy supply to Asia, Russia needs to build pipelines, trains and ports in the east – it will take years, but not decades. It will require political will and a commitment to increase infrastructure in the receiving countries.
“Looking at the remittances they send to Europe, even if Europe halves its dependence, it will still be the largest remittances,” said Philip Andrews-Speed, senior primary partner at the National University’s Energy Research Institute.
Oil and liquefied natural gas, supplied by ship, could be easily diverted, but it would be very difficult to convert to gas exports, he said.
“The idea that they could send large quantities of gas to Europe and transfer it to Asia, even in a year or two, is really a no-brainer,” he said. Said Andrews-Speed.
Europe accounts for half of Russia’s crude oil and condenser exports, three-quarters of its natural gas exports and one-third of its coal exports. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Russia’s interest in India and China were early signs.
India Said in mid-March It is in talks with Russia to increase oil imports at discounted prices, despite warnings from some US officials that reducing efforts to isolate Russia could have repercussions. India depends on imports for 80 per cent of its oil demand, of which 3 per cent comes from Russia.
In the first five weeks of the war in Ukraine, according to the Russian tanker tracking team led by the Ukrainian government to monitor Russian oil sales, Russia’s Russian oil purchases have increased by more than 700 percent compared to the previous five weeks.
Before the invasion of Ukraine, Russia $ 20 billion, signed annual contract 100 million tons of coal to be sold to China. A senior Chinese diplomat said in early April that China was not a party to the conflict in Ukraine and did not think “our regular trade with any other country should be affected”.
China already receives Russian gas through the 1,800-mile “Power of Siberia” pipeline, which began leaking in 2019 and is in talks to build a second pipeline.
Europe has banned Russian coal and indicated an oil embargo was in effect on Thursday, which will be adopted in the coming weeks. In a speech to the European Parliament last week, the EU’s foreign policy chief said that European countries were paying Russia about one billion euros a day for EU energy imports.
The need to find new places for Russia’s energy exports could, according to analysts, allow countries to order steep discounts.
“As Western companies leave Russia, Asian companies will face less competition in the Russian commodities market and will have the upper hand in negotiating terms and prices,” say analysts at the British consulting firm Verisk Maplecraft. Wrote in a statement this week. “Major importers like China and India will be more comfortable negotiating with other energy suppliers.”
“Lifelong social media lover. Falls down a lot. Creator. Devoted food aficionado. Explorer. Typical troublemaker.”