Business Insider: "Russia's huge oil offer to China is truly remarkable"

By Vestnik Kavkaza

Despite the radical drop in oil prices, notwithstanding the sanctions imposed on Russia by the US and the EU, oil production in Russia did not decrease. In fact, as Bloomberg observes, in the first quarter of 2015 it reached its post-Soviet maximum of 10.7 million barrels a day; at the moment Russia is the biggest producer of crude oil in the world, ahead of Saudi Arabia and the US.

"Crude oil exports from Russia grew about seven times faster than output in the first quarter, as the country processed less fuel at home. Shipments from the country increased 7.4 percent from a year earlier between January and March, the biggest gain in at least nine years and outstripping a 1.1 percent rise in production," Bloomberg cites the statistics of the Russian Energy Ministry.

The growing shipments from Russia are adding to the pressure on the prices of crude oil, that are otherwise in general decline. Neither members of OPEC, nor the U.S. show any inclination to cut oil production. 

Bloomberg connects the growth in Russia's oil exports to the country's difficult economic situation. “Russia has no means to cut production, OPEC has no desire to,” Bloomberg quotes the analyst of Commerzbank in Frankfurt. “Eventually the market may affect Russia’s capacity to export, but we aren’t there yet.”

The Western media also emphasizes Russia's turn to the east. Thus, Business Insider published an article titled "Russia's huge oil offer to China is truly remarkable", which interprets Russia's "pivot to Asia" as an attempt to seek alternative energy markets to those of the EU after Western governments imposed sanctions over the Ukrainian crisis. 

"Last year, China overtook Germany as Russia's biggest buyer of crude oil, thanks to Rosneft's securing deals to boost supplies via the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline and another crossing Kazakhstan. Still, with prices for oil having halved over the past year and natural gas prices also plunging, the Kremlin may find that Beijing is now seeking tough terms for any investment," writes Business Insider.