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Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Russia orders halt on petrol exports


al Jazeera:

Russia orders halt on petrol exports


Coming amid attacks on refineries, ban is intended to avert shortages and spiking prices on the domestic market.



Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has reportedly approved the petrol export ban [File: Pool photo via AP]

Published On 27 Feb 2024



Russia has passed a six-month ban on petrol exports from next week amid rising local demand.

The halt on petrol shipments abroad, which has been approved by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and is expected to start from March 1, was confirmed by state news agency Tass on Tuesday. A similar ban last year was introduced to avert shortages and spiking prices on the domestic market.

Russian outlet RBC said Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak had proposed limiting exports in a letter dated February 21 that noted that the domestic market will soon see increased seasonal demand for fuel.

“In order to offset excessive demand for petroleum products, it is necessary to take measures to help stabilize prices in the domestic market,” Novak was quoted as saying in his proposal by RBC.

The ban will not apply to the member states of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), which include Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, in addition to Mongolia and Uzbekistan, as well as the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Russia also introduced a ban on fuel exports last September, as the winter season approached, bringing in higher domestic demand that led to increased prices and shortages.

That ban had also excluded Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. Almost all the restrictions were subsequently removed by November.

However, the latest ban will be significantly longer, with suggestions that the Kremlin is keen to rein in rising fuel prices ahead of the March 15-17 presidential election.

At the same time, the export halt should help create space for the maintenance and repair of refineries, some of which have suffered attacks in recent months amid the war in Ukraine. Moscow reduced petrol exports to non-members of the Commonwealth of Independent States last month due to damage caused to its energy infrastructure.

Russia produced 43.9 million tonnes of petrol in 2023 of which it exported about 5.76 million tonnes. The biggest importers of Russian petrol are mainly African countries, including Nigeria, Libya and Tunisia, as well as the United Arab Emirates.

Russia is already voluntarily cutting its oil and fuel exports by 500,000 barrels per day in the first quarter as part of OPEC+ efforts to support prices.

4 comments:

  1. Plucky, innovative, heroic Ukraine has had its air force obliterated (as claimed by pro-Russian media) and has no navy worth mentioning - yet it has succeeded in causing significant damage to Russia's crude oil refining capacity.

    Combined with the steadily degrading Russian deep sea and extreme cold-weather oil field output after the withdrawal of American and European principals , Russia faces a long decline in its oil revenue.

    The OPEC Plus monopolistic efforts to force up the price of petroleum has failed - US and Guyana output increases have made up for OPEC Plus's cuts.
    All they get from their output cuts is declining revenue.

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    Replies
    1. Plucky innovative??? wakakaka. The Mirror reported in April 2021 that a “small team of UK special forces” had been deployed to Ukraine in an apparent intelligence-gathering mission on the border with Russia. Two months later, the British Embassy in Kiev released a statement reporting that the UK Minister for Defence Procurement and Deputy Defence Minister of Ukraine had “observed joint training activity of Ukrainian, UK and US special forces,” implying that UKSF were involved in a training operation in Ukraine.

      In April 2022, Al Jazeera reported that Russia had announced it was “looking into a Russian media report alleging that the SAS had been sent to the Lviv region in Western Ukraine” to “assist the Ukrainian special services in organising sabotage on the territory of Ukraine.” Just months later, the Daily Star reported that a group of ex-SAS troopers were in Ukraine and had “killed up to 20 Russian generals and 15 of the feared Wagner mercenaries,” the British also having helped to train some Ukrainian troops in ambush methods.

      Earlier this year, leaked US military documents revealed that the UK had deployed 50 special forces personnel, including the SAS, to Ukraine, more than half of all the Western special forces in the country from February to March 2023.

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    2. Yes -"Plucky, innovative, heroic Ukraine" , which nothing Ktemoc has posted detracts from.
      Plucky means having or showing determined courage in the face of difficulties.
      So what if a small cadre of British Special Forces ( who could fit inside a small meeting hall) are training Ukrainian commandos on Black Ops to resist the Russian aggression ?

      Ukraine is providing the courage and the blood.

      It's amazing a Russian shill like Ktemoc daily jumps up and down like a monkey about Palestinians, but sees no wrong in his support for Russian aggression.

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    3. Russian aggression.!


      Mfer, look at yr mfering mirror image of crying father mother for the self acquired fate of the Zionists & yet said inconsequential fart about the Palestinians!

      The Russians r not just fighting those blurred & reluctant Ukrainians conned by the demoNcratic air castle proposed by that puppeteered comedian. They r also fighting the masqueraded NATO soldiers! These numbers ain't no small size as u f*cking claimed.

      It's just uncalled for & unprincipled to be soldiers died w/o honor in foreign land with zilch acknowledgement by their commanding authorities.

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