Faced with sanctions, embargoes and banking difficulties, the price of a barrel of Urals is collapsing compared to a barrel of Brent, the benchmark variety on the world market.
When, at the beginning of March, the giant Shell agreed to buy a shipment of Russian oil at a knockdown price, the information spread like wildfire on social networks. Ukrainian Prime Minister Dmytro Kuleba challenged the Anglo-Dutch company on Twitter asking if this crude smelled of Ukrainian blood. Shell has not interrupted its purchases in Russia but has pledged to pay the profits from these sales to Ukraine.
In the absence of an oil embargo decided by the international community, with the exception of the United States and the United Kingdom, which bought very little, it is still allowed for Western or Asian companies to buy Russian crude. In the absence of transparent data on oil exchanges, it is difficult to know precisely whether, despite everything, the black gold of the Russians is flowing less well.
Read alsoWar in Ukraine: ten recipes for reducing dependence on Russian oil
An indicator, however, challenges the experts: the price difference between the barrel of Urals (reference variety of Russian oil) and the barrel of Brent…
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