Despite major efforts by the U.S., the EU and other countries to restrict Russia's fossil fuel revenues, the country is still earning more than half a billion U.S. dollars from oil and gas sales per day, according to think tank Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air. However, the organization says that by lowering price caps Western nations have been enforcing on Russian crude oil to $30 a barrel and by ending all pipeline and LNG exports from Russia to the EU, Russia's daily earnings from fossil fuels could dip as low as $340 million in the future.
Russia's current earnings are only somewhat below what the country was making from fossil fuels on an average day in May 2021. After the country invaded Ukraine one year ago, its earnings initially rose. Despite several nations beginning to boycott Russian fossil fuels right away and the country having to give discounts on sales to its remaining customers, the highly elevated world market prices due to the war caused Russian earnings to soar.
The EU banned the import of Russian seaborne crude oil in December and of Russian petroleum products in February, which is already included in CREA's latest figure. Yet, EU countries continue to import Russian oil and gas via pipeline or as LNG. Additionally, G7 nations in December agreed to establish an international price cap of $60 per barrel of Russian crude, enforced my prohibiting the involvement in any higher-priced shipments of insurers or operators from the G7 or the EU, which is where most of respective companies are located. However, according to CREA, a price cap around $30, closer to Russia's production price, would make more sense and would lead to about the same reduction in Russian revenues as the entire EU ending remaining fossil fuel dependency on Russia.
