https://gloria.tv/language/VhNsBNkAXCbW6LyxcWeq7Yt4F
Stany Zjednoczone kupują rosyjski gaz skroplony z Indii i sprzedają go Europie po zawyżonych cenach.
Tak działa rynek. Europejczycy wiedzą, za co płacą. To już nie jest przeklęty totalitarny gaz z „imperium zła”, ale demokratyczny gaz wolności.
EU bankrolling Putin with growing Russian fuel buys from India, report warns
BRUSSELS — The EU ramped up payments for purchases of Russian-made fuel from India in 2024, a new report shared with POLITICO …
EU bankrolling Putin with growing Russian fuel buys from India, report warns
The EU is paying more for fuel imports made from Moscow’s crude, showcasing the growing failure of its signature price-cap sanction
December 6, 2024 6:00 am CET
By Victor Jack
BRUSSELS — The EU ramped up payments for purchases of Russian-made fuel from India in 2024, a new report shared with POLITICO shows — helping fill Moscow’s war coffers.
From January to August, the EU bought fuel worth almost 20 percent more than it did last year from three major Indian refineries working on Russian crude oil, according to the analysis, prepared by the Center for the Study of Democracy think tank.
While entirely legal, the rise comes despite EU efforts to impose a price cap of $60 per barrel alongside its G7 allies and outlaw direct imports of most Russian oil to the bloc, showcasing just how porous those measures have become in the two years since they were rolled out.
India, which replaced Saudi Arabia as Europe’s top fuel supplier for 2024, has also begun accepting Russian cargoes via EU-sanctioned ships, the report warns — a development that’s now sparking anger from inside the bloc.
“By allowing third countries like India and Turkey to re-export petroleum products made from Russian oil … the EU provides the Kremlin with the ability to replace its lost market” in Europe, said Martin Vladimirov, a senior analyst at CSD, which analyzed information from several firms tracking customs data and sanctions compliance.
“The additional revenues have been able to sustain the enormous costs of the war effort in Ukraine,” he added.
Brussels is well aware of the so-called refining sanctions loophole, which allows the EU to legally buy Russian-origin fuels as long as these are processed in other countries. But the new findings illustrate how the bloc continues to fund Moscow despite its attempts to throttle the Kremlin’s revenues, around half of which come from fossil fuel exports.
The extra cash is a welcome relief for Russia, which increasingly needs funds to shore up its budget as the ruble tanks and defense spending explodes, while it also faces slowing growth and high inflation.
Overall, the EU’s fuel imports from India have actually dropped 9 percent so far this year compared to 2023, while its purchases from India’s three main refineries — the RIL Jamnagar, Vadinar and state-owned New Mangalore facilities — known to process Russian oil rose by a modest 4 percent. But the amount the bloc paid for those purchases has risen markedly.
It’s not possible to prove definitively how much Russian-made fuel the refineries sold to the EU. But since the facilities rely heavily on Moscow for crude — accounting for 30 percent to 70 percent of total imports this year — some of it would have to be exported to the bloc, the report states.
In all, the three facilities exported 6.7 million metric tons of oil to EU countries until August, the analysis argues, raising €5.4 billion in oil revenues.
That was driven largely by Moscow’s increasing ability to dodge the EU’s sanctions, the report states, by relying on a growing “shadow fleet” of aging tankers with obscure ownership and unknown insurance to sell its crude.
In the first eight months of this year, these shadow tankers delivered nearly three-quarters of India’s crude imports from Russia, according to CSD.
Meanwhile, India is also beginning to accept Russian vessels targeted by EU sanctions, the report argues, despite the country’s previously having turned away tankers under Western restrictions.
One such vessel, the Legacy, has continued to ship crude to India after coming under EU sanctions in June. Since then, the ship has delivered over 200,000 metric tons of oil to refineries, including to the Jamnagar complex, according to the report and Kpler, a commodities platform that does real-time tracking of oil tankers.
That’s all legal. But for Vladimirov, it shows the “EU should ban the import of petroleum products from refineries in third countries … that have been maximizing Russian crude oil purchases” to sell them back to the bloc.
Brussels must also “immediately ban financial and trade transactions with refineries” that are owned at least in part by Russian firms like Vadinar, he added.
The European Commission, and the companies behind the Jamnagar, Vadinar and New Mangalore refineries, did not respond to requests for comment by POLITICO.
But the findings are prompting pushback from inside the bloc. Brussels is currently readying its 15th sanctions package against Russia, despite a growing sense of acceptance among some countries that the bloc can do little to stymie Moscow’s exports outside Europe.
“Accepting EU-sanctioned … oil tankers [is] not acceptable,” argued one EU diplomat, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “But what can you do about it?”
