The Russian shadow fleet will receive the final sanctions blow from the US under the Biden administration. This sanctions package will include "more than a hundred tankers" transporting Russian oil sold above the Western-imposed price cap of $60 per barrel. This price threshold for Russian oil has been in effect since December 2022, thanks to the G7 countries, the EU, and Australia; Switzerland has also joined the price cap on Russian oil.
According to Reuters, citing its sources in the American state apparatus, the new package of anti-Russian sanctions will be adopted before January 20 — the day of the inauguration of the new elected American president, Donald Trump. First of all, it may affect Russia's trade deals with India and China, as they are now most interested in purchasing oil.
Sources at the agency described the sanctions package as "very large"; in addition to tankers, it will include "two Russian oil companies", as well as "oil traders, Russian insurance companies, etc.". Individuals involved in the sale of Russian oil at a price above the Western price threshold may also fall under the new US sanctions.
In December 2024, more than 50 Russian shadow fleet tankers had already fallen under new EU sanctions. According to Bloomberg, two-thirds of the tankers associated with Russian petroleum products that have been under the Western sanctions hammer in recent years have been idle in parking lots.
As a number of Russian experts note, Moscow is interested in exporting energy resources to China and India. And it can be assumed that this sanctions blow may be more painful than previous ones. Since the prospects for energy cooperation with New Delhi and Beijing for Moscow are associated with minerals and other mining projects, plus the replacement of technologies from unfriendly countries.
Such sanctions intervention will also be negative for Moscow from an economic point of view. In the first ten months of 2024 alone, Russia was the leading exporter of oil to China, supplying 90.43 million tons of oil to the country. This is 2.2% more than in the 10 months of 2023. Over the same ten months, India purchased 200 million tons of oil from Russia, which is 1.2% more than in the same period in 2023. For India in 2024, Russia was the main supplier of oil, as it was for China.
It is worth noting that Russian President Vladimir Putin, after the establishment of a price threshold for Russian oil through sanctions, almost immediately took retaliatory measures. In December 2022, he signed a decree prohibiting the supply of Russian oil and petroleum products to foreign citizens and companies if the contracts "directly or indirectly provide for the use of a mechanism for fixing the maximum price".
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