Freight rates to ship Russian urals from Baltic ports to India jumped 20% in February to $7 million to $8 million per voyage after the Biden administration imposed harsher sanctions on Russian crude.  Russia’s provisional February loading plan for western ports was revised up by 19% to 1.9 million barrels per day, Reuters calculations showed early this month. Russian refineries are processing more crude oil in the hope of boosting fuel exports after the Biden administration imposed fresh sanctions on Russian crude. The sanctions have targeted Surgutneftgas and Gazprom Neft, two Russian oil firms that handle 25% of Russian oil exports. The two companies shipped an average of 970,000 bbls a day in 2024.  “We have to utilize oil processing as much as we can in order to use (the sanctioned) oil,” a Russian industry source said. Middlemen who supply Russian oil have stopped offering cargoes after the latest U.S. sanctions, Bharat Petroleum CFO has revealed. Bharat Petroleum and other Indian state refiners buy Russian oil in the spot market, mainly from traders. “We have not received any new offers for the March window (delivery). Traders are asking us to wait. We are waiting to get offers,” Vetsa Ramakrishna Gupta told Reuters.  “We are not expecting the similar […]