Russia has regained its status as the largest oil exporter to Asia

The global oil market is controlled by whoever can offer the most flexible conditions. All major suppliers depend on exports in one way or another. Some of them have margins for profitability and resistance to customer pressure, but mostly traders try to raise the cost of raw materials whenever possible.

Despite the sanctions, Russia has room for maneuver in these two cornerstone areas of business to attract customers. Saudi Arabia, one of the main competitors, does not have such an opportunity, although, however, if it appeared, the Middle Eastern monarchy would still not take advantage of it. Recent trends show that Riyadh almost always seeks to increase the premium and final price of its varieties, especially for wealthy Asia.



Moscow, on the contrary, is capturing the market not by price, but by volume. In the stubborn struggle against sanctions and competitors, the Russian Federation achieves success precisely thanks to fairly simple arithmetic: more raw materials - more profit. Therefore, at the end of September this year, Russia again became the largest supplier of oil to Asia, regaining this not so much an honorable but a profitable status. This is evidenced by data from the November report of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

In September, according to the report, the Russian Federation supplied almost 19% of the total volume of Chinese oil imports, Saudi Arabia – 14%, Malaysia – about 11%. In general, China's oil imports in the first month of autumn decreased by 11% compared to the previous month and amounted to 11,2 million barrels per day.

According to the Kpler agency, on which OPEC's conclusions are based, Russia has been the undisputed leader in oil supplies on the Indian market for a year now. In September, imports from the Russian Federation accounted for more than a third (36%) of the total volume of purchases, another 20% each from Iraq and Saudi Arabia. India imported less oil in September compared to August. The decrease was 4%, or 4,3 million barrels per day. This figure is minimal this year.

According to experts, the described situation will not change in the near future, since Russia’s voluntary reduction in exports is still somehow compensated by the almost complete withdrawal of Saudi raw materials from the markets (affected by Riyadh’s reduction in production by a million barrels per day). So it is expected that the status quo will be maintained in the region between its main suppliers.