By The US is planning to impose further sanctions on tankers, carrying Russian crude oil in order to hinder Moscow’s war efforts against Ukraine, according to a Reuters report.
The outgoing US President Joe Biden has sought more support for Ukraine before the Republican Donald Trump takes office on January 20.
There have been frequent complaints in the US about the cost of support to Ukraine.
Sanctions against the tankers carrying Russian oil could hurt Moscow’s oil revenues.
Proposed sanctions on Russian oil
The Biden administration is planning sanctions against tankers, carrying Russian oil that is being sold above the West’s price cap of $60 per barrel, according to the Reuters report.
Reuters said that Russia has used a shadow fleet to transport its oil to other countries. These old ships have been used by the country to evade sanctions from the West.
According to shipping experts, the fleet of old ships is more prone to spillage and less safe.
However, over the last three years, Russia has largely been successful in avoiding the sanctions from the West by using the shadow fleet.
Since February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, western powers, including the US, the UK, and the European Union have imposed heavy sanctions on Moscow’s energy exports.
In late 2022, the Western powers had imposed the $60 cap on Russian crude oil supplies.
This banned any Western maritime services such as transport, insurance, and financing for oil shipments priced at or above the mentioned cap.
Russia’s efforts to expand oil exports
As heavy sanctions were imposed on Russia’s energy exports, the country diverted most of its oil barrels toward Asia at a considerable discount.
India, which accounted for less than 2% of Russian crude exports before the invasion, quickly became the top buyer.
China had also been gobbling up oil barrels from Russia.
Russian oil at a considerable discount to other crude grades from the Middle East and the US was more attractive for buyers in Asia.
One of the sources quoted by the news agency said the sanctions would also likely include measures against people involved in some networks trading oil above the price cap.
Last month, Finland had seized a tanker, carrying Russian oil in the Baltic Sea, suspecting it had damaged undersea power lines and telecommunications cables.
The country suspected that the tanker was part of the Russian shadow fleet.
The country seized the oil tanker on December 26, suspecting it of damaging the Finnish-Estonian Estlink 2 power line and telecommunications cables.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, the countries around the Baltic Sea have been on high alert due to outages of power cables, telecommunications links, and gas pipelines.
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