Russian Crude in Limbo as Deliveries Falter

Описание: Heidi Crebo-Rediker, Senior Fellow for Geoeconomics at the Council on Foreign Relations, discusses the growing risks and costs for Russia’s shadow fleet amid seizures and Black Sea attacks.

Tankers hauling Russia’s crude are piling up at sea with nowhere to go, as Moscow struggles to revive the Indian market that saved its oil trade when European buyers turned away after the Ukraine invasion.
The country shipped 3.42 million barrels a day in the four weeks to Jan. 11, according to vessel-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.
That’s down by about 450,000 barrels a day from a pre-Christmas peak, though just 30,000 barrels a day lower than the period to Jan. 4 and above the average level for the whole of last year. A 15th straight drop in prices combined with another small decline in flows sent the value of shipments to a new low for the period since the invasion.
However the real problem for Moscow is not getting its crude onto tankers, but getting it off again. At least 12 vessels full of Urals crude are anchored off the southern coast of Oman.
Some have been there since mid-December and more are arriving almost every day. Ships are also idling for weeks further out in the Arabian Sea and at various points off the coast of China.
Delays in offloading cargoes, combined with more ships making longer voyages to China rather than India, has sent the amount of Russian crude at sea soaring to new highs.
Almost all shipments from the Arctic port of Murmansk now head to China. As recently as July, 80% of the tankers leaving the port delivered their cargoes to India or Syria. But the Syrian market was lost with the fall of Bashar al-Assad, while buyers in India are shunning barrels from sanctioned Russian companies, which include Gazprom Neft PJSC and Lukoil PJSC, that ship from Murmansk.
The pressure on Moscow comes as the US is moving forward with legislation that will allow President Donald Trump to punish countries who buy cheap Russian oil. The White House has also become more proactive in halting flows of sanctioned oil.

Russia’s revenues from its oil and gas industry, vital to financing its war in Ukraine, dropped to a five-year low in 2025 as crude prices slumped and gas exports declined.
The nation’s budget received a total of 8.48 trillion rubles ($108 billion) in oil and gas taxes last year, Finance Ministry said on Thursday. That’s 24% less than in 2024 and the lowest level since the start of the decade, historic figures show. 

Russia, a top-three global oil producer and home to the world’s largest gas reserves, heavily relies on tax revenues from the two industries to fill its state coffers. The decline, mainly driven by a combination of weaker global oil prices, stronger ruble and energy sanctions against Russia, comes as the Kremlin has boosted military spending significantly above what it planned to fund the war, which is about to enter a fifth year.
To bridge the widening gap between revenues and spending, the government in Moscow has eaten into more than half of the country’s National Wellbeing Fund — a buffer against economic shocks — and turned to expensive borrowings that will take years to pay back.  

Oil revenues dropped more than 22% year on year to 7.13 trillion rubles, reaching the lowest level since 2023, Bloomberg calculations show. Concerns about an oversupply in the global crude market, and discounts for Russian barrels in particular due to western sanctions, hit the flow of money into state coffers.
The official data show that the average price of Urals, Russia’s main oil-export blend, for tax purposes was $57.65 a barrel in 2025, a 15% drop from a year earlier.  
Starting from November, when the US blacklisted two major oil producers Rosneft PJSC and Lukoil PJSC, the discount of Urals to the Brent benchmark widened to about $27 a barrel at the point of export, as buyers needed financial incentives to continue purchases. 
A stronger ruble also contributed to the lower revenues in domestic-currency terms.



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