US, Britain to ban all imports of Russian oil

[WASHINGTON] The US and Britain will ban all imports of Russian oil, the latest round of sanctions against Vladimir Putin's administration over the war in Ukraine.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced the ban on Russian oil and other energy imports, ramping up its pressure campaign on Moscow.

The decision was made in consultation with European allies, who rely more heavily than the US on Russian energy.

The move would shut off the relatively small flow of oil into the United States, which receives less than 10 per cent of its energy resources from Russia. Russian oil made up about 3 per cent of all the crude shipments that arrived in the US last year, US Energy Information Administration data show.

Overall, imports of Russian oil and petroleum products represented about 8 per cent of the US total. US imports of Russian crude in 2022 have dropped to the slowest annual pace since 2017, according to the intelligence firm Kpler.

Britain's Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said the measure will be phased in over the rest of 2022.

"This transition will give the market, businesses and supply chains more than enough time to replace Russian imports - which make up 8 per cent of UK demand," Kwarteng said on Twitter.

He added that the ban applies to refined products such as diesel - which the UK relies on Russia for about a third of its imports. It won't apply to natural gas.

Republicans and Democrats in Congress had been urging the president to take the step to ban oil imports to ensure that Putin was not profiting from American purchases of oil.

Officials said Biden had struggled for days about whether the take the step amid concerns about whether it would accelerate the already rapid rise in the price of gasoline at the pumps - a potent political issue for Americans in a critical election year.

Already, concern about disruptions in the flow of oil around the world has pushed the price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, up about 4.3 per cent on Monday to US$123.21 a barrel. It has been as high as US$139 a barrel, up 26 per cent over the past week.

And on Monday, anticipation of a ban on oil by the United States shook financial markets. The S&P 500 fell 3 per cent, its sharpest daily decline since October 2020. The Nasdaq composite dropped 3.6 per cent and is now 20 per cent off its November record.

But the pressure on Biden to act has been intense. Lawmakers from both parties in Congress began discussing on Monday legislation that would ban Russian oil and suspend normal trade relations with Russia and Belarus.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly endorsed those actions, telling reporters last week: "I'm all for that. Ban it."

Apart from Britain, it is unlikely that Biden will be joined by the leaders of other European countries, officials said. Europe gets about 30 per cent of its oil from Russia and leaders there have been wary of taking a step that would cut off that supply.

NYTimes, BLOOMBERG