Russia said that it will find other importers after the European Union leaders agreed in principle on Monday to cut 90% of oil imports from Russia by the end of 2022.
Following the invasion of Russia in Ukraine, nations across the world are imposing various types of bans on Moscow for its action. The latest move by the European Union is to stop depending on Russian oil that roughly 36% of total oil imports to the bloc comes from Russia.
After a long discussion, EU leaders finally agreed to embark not all but 90% of oil imports from the Kremlin by the end of this year.
The bloc has yet to identify its alternate route to replace the missing amount from Russia. There were outlines of conventional and renewable energy sources that the EU can use to replace fossil fuels from Russia and could reduce EU demand for Russian gas by two thirds before the end of the year.
The U.S. also proposed to feed gas to the bloc, but that could be at a much higher price than importing oil from Russia.
However, the fact that the bloc needs time to slowly phase out their dependency shows that Russia still has the upper hand at the current stage, though it might not be long.
In the meantime, Russia will have other countries that are willing to take its oil. India, the world’s third largest oil importer, has been stocking up on Russian oil at significant discount prices. Meanwhile, China is also ramping up purchases of oil from Moscow at bargain prices as well.
After the announcement of a new measure by the EU, Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna, said the oil ban reflects negatively on the bloc while adding that Russia will find other importers.
