Good News: Putin Price Hike Here Means Russia Making High Revenue From Exports

Weren’t all those sanctions supposed to cripple Russia? Biden and his Democrat Comrades keep telling us what we’re experiencing is the Putin price hike (behind the NY Times paywall here)

Russia’s Oil Revenue Soars Despite Sanctions, Study Finds

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered global condemnation and tough sanctions aimed at denting Moscow’s war chest. Yet Russia’s revenues from fossil fuels, by far its biggest export, soared to records in the first 100 days of its war on Ukraine, driven by a windfall from oil sales amid surging prices, a new analysis shows.

Russia earned what is very likely a record 93 billion euros in revenue from exports of oil, gas and coal in the first 100 days of the country’s invasion of Ukraine, according to data analyzed by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, a research organization based in Helsinki. About two-thirds of those earnings, the equivalent of about $97 billion, came from oil, and most of the remainder from natural gas.

“The current rate of revenue is unprecedented, because prices are unprecedented, and export volumes are close to their highest levels on record,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, an analyst who led the center’s research. (snip)

“We’re asking the world to do everything possible in order to cut off Putin and his war machine from all possible financing, but it’s taking much too long,” Oleg Ustenko, an economic adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, said from Kyiv about President Vladimir Putin of Russia. (snip)

“You can stop importing Russian caviar and Russian vodka, and that’s good, but definitely not enough. You need to stop importing Russian oil,” he said.

So, we in the U.S. are paying for the sanctions, that mostly avoid Russia fossil fuels, that aren’t really doing much, and Russia is making money hand over fist selling to India and other countries. Good plan!

(Financial Times) In his State of the Union address days after Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded Ukraine, President Joe Biden listed measures the US was taking to punish Russia in a “battle between democracy and autocracy”. Yet as the west has sought to isolate one autocrat, it has been forced to seek help from others: Saudi Arabia and its fellow absolute monarchies in the oil-rich Gulf. (snip)

To damp sky-high petrol prices ahead of US midterm elections, Biden is having to turn to a state he pledged to treat as a pariah. Washington has urged Saudi Arabia, Opec’s de facto leader, to raise production. This month, the kingdom and its allies in Opec+, which includes Russia, finally announced a modest acceleration of output.

The White House credited Saudi Arabia for “achieving this consensus among the group members”. Biden is considering visiting the kingdom. That would mean sitting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — whom US intelligence concluded had authorised the operation to “capture or kill” journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered four years ago.

The energy crisis is increasing the leverage of MBS and other Gulf leaders. Only Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, another autocratic state, have the spare capacity to significantly boost oil production. Neighbouring Qatar, the world’s biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas, is meanwhile being courted by European governments and energy companies. While the world frets about energy supplies and inflation, the Gulf is enjoying a boom as the west’s reliance on its hydrocarbons only deepens.

If only there was some other solution instead of looking to Saudi Arabia.

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