“There are individual cases when Russian oil was mixed with something there, and indeed in some tankers, but this practice has not found wide application.
Russian oil, in general, is very, very easy to replace.
They used to say that the entire oil refinery needs to be redesigned so that a different grade of oil is obtained according to its technical characteristics ... Well, this is not so. These are cheap alterations, this is, in general.
Look: in India, 42 grades of oil are received by oil refineries and are calmly adapting to this business. That is, everything can be done.
Who will replace Russia? You look: in principle, if the European embargo on crude oil comes in December, the embargo on oil products turns on in March next year, then Russia will lose 51% of crude oil exports, 57% of oil products exports. But in general, this is 2.5 - 3 million barrels per day from the Russian one - this can be easily replaced.
Firstly, it is easily replaced by the OPEC countries, Saudi Arabia, which has 1.5-2 million barrels per day to increase capacity. Iraq has a good supply. Kuwait is smaller. We see that Libya can additionally join this.
Venezuela, which has the largest oil reserves in the world, threatens to join this, is already ready, apparently, to join, permission from the Americans has been received for Italian and Spanish companies.
In principle, the price of oil on the world market already includes the factor that Russian oil may leave, in the amount of 2-3 million barrels of oil per day.
As the head of the Kuwaiti oil company said, the military surcharge on the price is already included, starting at $30 per barrel. The price was raised to this $30 just to neutralize the future withdrawal of Russia from the oil market.”
The entire issue featuring Mikhail Krutikhin can be viewed here.