According to a report, Russia earned nearly $100bn (£82.3bn) from oil and gas exports during the first 100 days of the war in Ukraine.

Revenue has been falling since March 2022, as many countries shunned Russian supplies, but the independent Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) found that supplies still remain high. It also warned of potential loopholes in efforts to curb imports from Russia.

The EU, US and UK are among those to have pledged to cut Russian imports. But the CREA report revealed that Russia still earned $97bn in revenue from fossil fuel exports in the first 100 days of the Ukraine conflict, from Thursday, February 24, 2022, to June 3, 2022.

Per study, it showed that the EU made up 61% of these imports, worth approximately $59bn. Overall, exports of Russian oil and gas are falling and Moscow’s revenue from energy sales also declined from a peak of well over $1bn a day in March 2022.

Despite this, revenues still exceeded the cost of the Ukraine war during the first 100 days, with the CREA estimating that Russia is spending around $876m per day on the invasion.

What is the EU Planning?

The EU plans to ban Russian oil imports arriving by sea by the end of 2022, which would cut imports from Russia by two-thirds.

In March 2022, the bloc also committed to reducing gas imports from Russia by two-thirds within a year. However, so far it has been unable to agree on an outright ban. Meanwhile, the US on the other hand declared a complete ban on Russian oil, gas and coal imports. The UK is to phase out Russian oil imports by the end of the year (2022).

The CREA report noted that the EU’s planned oil embargo would have a significant impact, but also warned that large quantities of Russian crude oil were now being shipped to India, which increased its share of Russia’s total crude exports from around 1% before the invasion of Ukraine to 18% in May 2022.

The report also stated that a “significant share” of this is being refined and sold on, often to customers in the US and Europe, which it described as “an important loophole to close”. It added that strong sanctions against tankers transporting Russian crude would significantly limit the scope of this practice. The report pointed out that as Russia seeks new markets for oil, much of it is being transported by ship, and the majority of the vessels used are owned by European and US companies.

The report also revealed that apart from India, the other countries that increased imports of Russian fuel included France, China, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.