EU discusses possible embargo on Russian oil imports

Officially, nothing has been decided and some countries, starting with Germany, remain opposed to stopping oil imports from Russia because they have no immediate alternative. But the subject came back to the fore yesterday at the meeting of EU Foreign Ministers and the fact that it was the Lithuanian Minister who spoke in favour of such a measure, even though more than 80% of his country’s oil imports come from Russia, is not anecdotal: it means that for part of the EU, Politics must take precedence over Economics, whatever the cost. No decision should be taken in the short term, but it is a subject that will become more and more burning. For its part, Russia has already warned that the EU would suffer serious consequences if it were to follow the US and the UK in this direction, suggesting that it could adopt a policy of halting exports of other products, metals or raw materials essential to the EU economy. It should be remembered that 60% of Russian oil was exported to the EU before the outbreak of the war.

Against this background, but also as a result of new statements by Chinese leaders indicating that they would do everything possible to support demand, oil prices continued to rise. Brent almost touched $120/b this morning, before pulling back to $115/b for no clear reason at the moment.