Chinese refineries have replaced Russian oil with barrels from the Middle East.
  • Buffalox@lemmy.world
    401·
    3 months ago

    Interesting:

    The sagging Chinese demand has dropped the economy’s revenues:

    But they also write:

    Chinese refineries replaced Russian oil with barrels from the Middle East,

    In addition, imports from Malaysia, which is the main hub for oil transit from the sub-sanctioned countries of Iran and Venezuela, soared 61%

    So it seems it is not lacking Chinese demand, but probably Russia that can’t keep supplies up. China is buying Russian oil super cheap, so why would they replace that with other sources?

    If true, this is a clear indication that Russian production is failing, probably because Ukraine is bombing refineries and depots, and Russia can’t maintain their production, because they were dependent on western expertise, and Russia infra structure in general is hurt by worker shortages.

    Russia is slowly collapsing under the burden of the war, which was clearly too big a bite for their economy to chew.

    • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
      17·
      3 months ago

      I’d rather Russia just packs up and goes home but if economic collapse is a self imposed prerequisite I wish they’d get on with it.

      It doesn’t seem like the Ukrainian strikes on oil infrastructure are going to let up any time soon especially given how effective they’ve been.

    • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      11·
      3 months ago

      A handful of $1000 drones with some C4 strapped to them in exchange for a refinery/processing plant/etc probably worth $50-100M or more? Sounds like a great tradeoff.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
        61·
        3 months ago

        I guess that’s a possibility too, but I doubt it. I suspect that would mostly make payments slower or in other currencies than Ruble, and Russia would have no choice but to accept that.