The US increased crude oil supplies from Russia before banning the import of energy resources from this country. According to the data, over the last week of March, Russian supplies of crude oil surged to 100,000 barrels a day. Although this amount was far from a record high, it exceeded the usual import volumes.
During the last week before the ban came into force, US gas and oil exports jumped considerably. The official data revealed that US buyers increased supplies of Russian oil to 100,000 barrels a day. This twice exceeded oil supplies of 60,000 per day recorded during the previous week. However, not only Russian oil producers benefited from the situation. The fact is that the US boosted the import of oil from various countries. Thus, oil supplies from Canada were 36 times bigger than from Russia, whereas supplies from Mexico and Saudi Arabia surpassed the import of Russian oil by 7 and 3 times respectively.
Notably, Washington announced its decision to embargo Russian oil, some petroleum products as well as liquefied natural gas (LNG) and coal. The UK is also planning to follow the US steps. The Kingdom intends to phase out the import of Russian oil and oil products by the end of 2022. In response, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said that global energy markets would collapse if sanctions were imposed on oil and gas from Russia.
