Russia to redirect 140 mln t of crude, oil product exports from west to east in 2023 - Novak
MOSCOW. April 27 (Interfax) - Russia redirected to the east 40 million tonnes of the 220 million tonnes crude and oil products it previously exported westward in 2022, and this year exports to the west will be reduced by 140 million tonnes, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told reporters.
"The energy resources that were previously sent to Europe were redirected to new markets to a significant extent. If we're talking about oil, then we probably redirected about 20% of the volumes that were previously supplied to Europe to the markets of India, China and other countries," Novak said Wednesday at educational marathon Znaniye: Pervye (Knowledge: The First Ones) in Moscow.
Speaking with reporters later, he said this refers to the redirection of crude oil and oil products.
"I was talking about 2022, that 20%, about 40 million tonnes of our total oil and oil product exports that used to go westward, and we had about 220 million tonnes in the western direction, 40 million tonnes went east," Novak said.
"So 40 million tonnes went [east] in 2022. This year 140 million tonnes of oil and oil products will go east. And a total of about 80 million-90 million tonnes will remain in the western direction," Novak said.
Russia is expected to reduce oil production by 20 million tonnes to 515 million tonnes in 2023.
Russia exported about 230 million tonnes of oil in 2021, including 191 million tonnes by pipeline, of which 174 million tonnes were Russian crude (98 million tonnes by sea and 76 million tonnes by pipeline), according to data from the Central Dispatching Department of the Fuel and Energy Complex (CDU TEK). The Kozmino port in eastern Russia accounted for 35 million tonnes of seaborne exports and 40 million tonnes of pipeline exports went to China. Oil product exports totalled 144 million tonnes in 2021.
Novak said earlier that crude exports from Russia rose 7.6% to 242 million tonnes in 2022, while oil product exports fell 3% to 272 million tonnes.
The European Union imposed an embargo on imports of Russian crude in December 2022, and on imports of oil products as of February 5, 2023. However, there are a number of exceptions: supplies via the Druzhba pipeline can continue, Bulgaria can buy oil (for Lukoil's refinery) and Croatia can continue to buy vacuum gasoil from Russia.
Supplies through Druzhba flow through two branches, northern and southern. The former supplies crude to Poland and Germany, which have renounced Russian oil. The southern branch supplies crude to the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, which imported 12 million tonnes via the pipeline in 2021. Lukoil's refinery in Bulgaria had capacity of 7 million tonnes before the pandemic (not including unused capacity of 2.8 million tonnes) and it refined 6.8 million tonnes in 2019; crude is supplied by sea.
In addition, Turkey has increased imports of Russian crude and oil products, the International Energy Agency has said.