EU Refiners Turn To Kazak, Azeri, Norwegian Crude To Fill Russian Supply Gap

European refiners have accelerated their shift to buying more crudes from Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Norway, the US and Guyana as Western sanctions on Moscow pressured crude imports from Russia to record lows, according to tanker tracking data.

• The EU's seaborne imports of Russia's Urals crude have slumped to just 123kbpd in the first half of December, compared to pre-war levels at the beginning of the year at 1.5mbpd, according to data from S&P Global Commodities.
• Many EU refiners have turned to Kazakhstan's CPC Blend and KEBCO crudes, which combined, become the EU's biggest source of crude imports at 1.2mbpd in November, CAS data showed.
• Other key crude grades helping to plug the gap in Russian supplies of medium sour crudes are Azeri Light, Brazil's Lula/Tupi, Norway's Johan Sverdrup, US' WTI Midland, Guyana's Liza and Unity Gold blends.
• Combined, EU imports of the six grades rose 770kbpd from pre-war levels in December, CAS data showed.
• The value of Urals crude has been trading below the G7's $60/b price cap since 18 Nov and Platts last assessed it at $47.355/b on 14 Dec, a $36.25/b discount to Dated Brent, S&P Global Commodity Insights data showed.