EUROPEAN OIL RECEIPTS BOOSTING PUTIN’S WAR CHEST BY $285M A DAY: REPORT

Wed 09 March 2022:

According to a recent analysis, Europe is paying Putin $285 million (£217 million) in oil payments every day to fuel his war against Ukraine.

According to a new study by the Transport & Environment think group, Russia received $104 billion from oil, gasoline, and diesel exports to Europe and the United Kingdom last year, more than double the $43 billion it received from gas shipments.

“Europe is sending over a quarter of a billion to Putin every day, even as he wages war in its own backyard. This has to end. But we should not simply swap Russian oil for Saudi oil. It’s time to greatly improve transport efficiency and turbocharge the electrification of transport to drive down our oil consumption,” William Todts, executive director of T&E, said.

For more than a quarter of their crude oil, European countries rely on Russian oil.

While some European countries, such as Slovakia, rely on Russia for over 90% of its oil, the continent’s overall dependence, while considerable, is not enormous, according to the study.

The research was published just days before the United States announced a ban on Russian oil imports. Shell also announced that it will close its Russian petrol stations and stop buying oil on the spot market.

Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, is scheduled to make a speech later this week on reducing Britain’s reliance on Russian gas supplies. Aside from that, some European countries are developing alternate energy sources to reduce their reliance on Russian oil.

Russia’s deputy prime minister Alexander Novak responded to the US actions by saying that any rejection of Russian oil would have “catastrophic consequences” and could drive prices as high as $300 per barrel.

Between 2004 and 2017, Europe imported more than 200 million tonnes of oil from Russia each year, with purchases growing in the two years following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

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