Report: Russia deceives OPEC on oil sales to fund Ukraine war

 

FILE – An oil tanker is moored at the Sheskharis complex, part of Chernomortransneft JSC, a subsidiary of Transneft PJSC, in Novorossiysk, Russia, on Oct. 11, 2022.

Smuggling

“Paradoxically, because Russia started using those sophisticated methods of smuggling its oil, they are able not just to fool the West and to hide the oil supplies from sanctions, but also to hide them from their partners in the OPEC+ club,” Danylyuk said.

“The real scale of the operations is actually much higher than most observers believe — $60 billion literally stolen from other OPEC+ countries,” he added. “I don\’t think that OPEC originally was founded to have members like that, right? So it\’s not fair. It\’s not how cartels usually work.”

Russia response

Russia has not directly addressed accusations that it conceals oil sales from OPEC. The Kremlin had not responded to VOA requests for comment at the time of publication.

Speaking at September’s Russian Energy Week forum in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin insisted his country was a reliable partner.

“Russia fulfills its obligations to supply energy resources to the world market and plays a stabilizing role in it by participating in such authoritative formats as OPEC+,” Putin said in a September 26 address to the conference.

OPEC also did not respond to VOA requests for comment. In a press release issued Sunday, OPEC said that Russia — along with Iraq and Kazakhstan — had “strongly reaffirmed” their commitment to cut oil output.

Danylyuk said the interests of the West and OPEC were now aligned, “because the West doesn\’t want Russia to make money and OPEC doesn\’t want Russia to steal money from them.”

“Obviously, the only way to reduce Russia\’s ability to make that money is to just reject them from OPEC,” he told VOA.

 

By：VOA