The month of March marked as the 1st full year since 400k b/d of the overall capacity for the KRG pipeline was halted, a pipeline which once handled about 0.5% of global crude supply. This pipeline flows from Northern Iraq to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. Political tensions between the Iraqi government, the autonomous Kurdistan Government (KRG) and Turkey have curtailed the ability to formulate an immediate solution to bring back the throughput, a perfect bypass of not only the Red Sea but also the Hormuz Strait and the Suez Canal.
However, the Iraqi government is planning to ...
Sanctioned Russian Fleet Impact
April 5, 2024
As the US tightened sanctions enforcement, major refineries in India announced they have stopped buying Russian crude carried by the Russian fleet mainly owned by Sovcomflot, a trend likely to expand to buyers in the Far East. Two scenarios could emerge when Asian buyers walk away from Russian oil and/or Russian ships: 1) an increase of “shadow” Aframax fleet for Russia > India+China demand if crude exports remain at similar level (or possibly higher due to drone strikes taking out refinery capacity); 2) a substitute of Russian crude with imports from the Middle East and US Gulf by conventional ...
