Vitol's Mike Muller Comments on Russian Oil Cap

Vitol’s Muller comments on Russian oil cap on the Gulf Intelligence daily energy webcast:

• "The markets where most Russian crude oil is flowing and will now flow once the sanctions take further effect later this year will be spread out more widely” -“so, the discounts we are currently seeing in place for Russian crude oil and product exports will possibly diminish at the same time that more participants are brought into the fold."
• "A way must be found to allow Russian oil to continue to flow into markets because unlike the inventory build of gas in Europe...that does not apply for oil,"
• "We have to bear in mind that Russia's production is a much larger number than Iran's production, so we can't draw parallels about sanctions taking effect in Russia in the same way as Iran because Russia has capacity to produce 11 million b/d of oil."
• "The whole of the mindset around will there or will there not be Iranian oil in the market is extremely important for OPEC+ to take into account,"
• "That absolutely matters as we come into the peak demand period for Asia in particular and in terms of the October period where in Asia large NOCs tend to sign up contracts for the next calendar year."
• "The period of price stabilizations after COVID and OPEC+ is also over and there is a big question over the what next,"
• "By expressing the willingness to take oil off the market in response to either oil coming into the market from Iran sanctions being dropped or from the lack of demand in China due to COVID repression measures serves as a reminder that we are not going to see everybody producing flat out."
• "People do worry about spare capacity not just for geopolitical disruptions but also weather disruptions and of course the entire sanctions picture,"