Dmitry Petrovsky13:37, 23.01.25

The tariff for transporting oil to China has reached $7 million, while before the introduction of US sanctions it was $1.5 million.

The cost of transporting Russian ESPO oil to China has risen further and is now almost five times higher than before the US imposed sanctions on Russia’s oil industry, Bloomberg reports .

The rate for shipping oil from the Pacific port of Kozmino in eastern Russia to China reached $7 million this week, according to traders familiar with the route who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the issue. The rate was $5.5 million last week, and $1.5 million before the U.S. sanctions.

Chinese ports have become more cautious about handling sanctioned tankers, which has disrupted the ESPO crude trade as many of the vessels plying the route have been blacklisted. This has prompted other tankers that previously served western Russian ports to relocate east and transport barrels of oil to China.

According to Kpler, one of the latest tankers to join the route is the Legend, which loaded for the first time on January 20 at the port of Kozmino and is due to unload its cargo in the southern Chinese city of Huizhou. The Aframax previously carried Urals crude from the western Russian ports of Ust-Luga and Primorsk.

(c)UNIAN 2025