Nearly 10 months into Russia’s war on Ukraine, the U.S. and its allies are still trying to find ways to weaken Russia’s economy. On Dec. 5, a ban on all imports of Russian oil by ship went into effect, and more than three dozen countries have agreed to place a price cap on the oil Russia can sell.
- The price cap was set at $60 a barrel to deprive Russia of oil revenues while also not shocking the global oil market, Ben Cahill, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said.
- Russia’s oil industry has lost technical partners and investment partners, and a lot of companies are refusing to do business with Russia, according to Cahill.
- Minimizing oil revenue is the key to creating pressure on Russia’s economy, Cahill explained.
SEE ALSO | Institute of International Finance predicts Russian economy will drop by 15% this year
WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 08: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House March 8, 2022 in Washington, DC. During his remarks, Biden announced a full ban on imports of Russian oil and energy products as an additional step in holding Russia accountable for its invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
NEFTEYUGANSK, SIBERIA - APRIL 24: Workers repair an oil well owned by the Yukos company April 24, 2002 in Nefteyugansk, Siberia. Yukos is a fully integrated oil-and-gas company headquartered in Moscow, Russia and is one of the world's largest non-state oil companies by reserves and market capitalization. (Photo by Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images)
TAFT, CA - JULY 22: Oil rigs just south of town extract crude for Chevron at sunrise on July 22, 2008 in Taft, California. Hemmed in by the richest oil fields in California, the oil town of 6,700 with a stagnant economy and little room to expand has hatched an ambitious plan to annex vast expanses of land reaching eastward to Interstate 5, 18 miles away, and taking over various poor unincorporated communities to triple its population to around 20,000. With the price as light sweet crude at record high prices, Chevron and other companies are scrambling to drill new wells and reopen old wells once considered unprofitable. The renewed profits for oil men of Kern County, where more than 75 percent of all the oil produced in California flows, do not directly translate increased revenue for Taft. The Taft town council wants to cash in on the new oil boom with increased tax revenues from a NASCAR track and future developments near the freeway. In an earlier oil boom era, Taft was the site of the 1910 Lakeside Gusher, the biggest oil gusher ever seen in the US, which sent 100,000 barrels a day into a lake of crude. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)
