With today’s package, theEU is curtailing Russia’s energy revenuesthrough a number of different measures. The EU is lowering theprice cap for crude oilfrom USD 60 toUSD 47.6 per barrel, to align it with current global oil prices and is introducing an automatic and dynamic mechanism to modify the oil price cap and ensure that this price cap is effective. Oil exports still represent one third of the Russian government’s revenues.
The EU is also imposing further sanctionsacross the shadow fleetvalue chain. Anadditional 105vesselswill be subject to aport access ban and a ban on the provision of a broad range of servicesrelated to maritime transport, bringing the total number of listed vessels to 444. This measure targets non-EU tankers that are part of Vladimir Putin’s shadow fleet circumventing the oil price cap mechanism, which support the energy sector of Russia or which transport military equipment for Russia or stolen Ukrainian grain.
Full-fledged sanctions(asset freezes, travel bans, bans on providing resources) target Russian and international companies managingshadow fleetvessels, traders of Russian crude oil and a major customer of the shadow fleet – a refinery in India with Rosneft as its main shareholder. For the first time, The EU is also listing the captain of a shadow fleet vessel, as well as a private operator of an international flag registry. Lastly, one entity in the RussianLNG sectoris also included in today’s listings.
Furthermore, the EU is introducing animport ban on refined petroleum productsmade from Russian crude oil and coming from any third country – with the exception of Canada, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States – thereby preventing Russia’s crude oil from reaching the EU market through the back door.
The EU is also imposing a fulltransaction ban on Nord Stream 1 and 2, including for the provision of goods or services, thus preventing the completion, maintenance, operation and any future use of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines.
Lastly, the Council decided to end the exemption for oil imports from Russia to Czechia.
EU Press Release
