Russia is ramping up oil exports from its major eastern port of Kozmino by about a fifth, aiming to meet surging demand from Asian buyers and offset the impact of EU sanctions, three sources familiar with the matter said.
Moscow has said it hopes to re-route energy exports from the West to Asia, but doing so via long tanker voyages from European sea ports is expensive and complicated by western sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine, such as on shipping.
Russia’s pipeline monopoly Transneft has already increased the amount of crude pumped to Kozmino on its main Asian oil route, the East Siberia Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline, by 70,000 barrels per day (bpd) by using chemical additives to speed up oil flows, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Moscow also plans to send an extra 80,000 bpd of so-called ESPO Blend crude to Kozmino via rail from Meget. The additional supplies will allow Kozmino to increase overall loadings to some 900,000 bpd in the months ahead.
