Who's Still Buying Russian Fossil Fuels in 2023?

While Russia’s revenues from fossil fuel exports have declined significantly since their peak in March of 2022, many countries are still importing millions of dollars a day worth of fossil fuels from Russia. Revenue from fossil fuels exported to the EU has declined more than 90% from their peak, but in 2023 the bloc has still imported more than $18 billion of crude oil and natural gas so far. This graphic uses data from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air ( CREA) to visualize the top-importing countries of fossil fuels from Russia so far this year. China Remains Russia’s Top Fossil Fuel Importer China continues to be Russia’s top buyer of fossil fuels, with imports reaching $30 billion in 2023 up until June 16, 2023. With nearly 80% of China’s fuel imports being crude oil, Russia’s average daily revenues from Chinese fossil fuel imports have declined from $210 million in 2022 to $178 million in 2023 largely due to the falling price of Russian crude oil. Following China are EU nations collectively, which despite no longer importing coal from Russia since August of 2022, still imported $18.4 billion of fossil fuels in a 60/40 split of crude oil and natural gas respectively. | Country | Russian Fossil Fuel Imports* (Total) | Crude Oil | Natural Gas | Coal | | 🇨🇳 China | $30B | $23.9B | $2.7B | $3.3B | | 🇪🇺 EU | $18.4B | $11.2B | $7.2B | $0 | | 🇮🇳 India | $15.2B | $12.8B | $0 | $2.5B | | 🇹🇷 Türkiye | $12.1B | $7.3B | $3B | $1.7B | | 🇦🇪 UAE | $2.3B | $2.3B | $0 | $0 | | 🇰🇷 South Korea | $2.1B | $0.6B | $0.3B | $1.2B | | 🇸🇰 Slovakia | $2.0B | $1.1B | $0.9B | $0 | | 🇭🇺 Hungary | $1.9B | $0.8B | $1.1B | $0 | | 🇧🇪 Belgium | $1.9B | $0.5B | $1.4B | $0 | | 🇯🇵 Japan | $1.8B | $0 | $1.5B | $0.3B | | 🇪🇸 Spain | $1.7B | $0.6B | $1.1B | $0 | | 🇸🇬 Singapore | $1.7B | $1.7B | $0 | $0 | | 🇧🇷 Brazil | $1.6B | $1.4B | $0 | $0.2B | | 🇳🇱 Netherlands | $1.6B | $1.5B | $0.1B | $0 | | 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia | $1.5B | $1.4B | $0 | $0 | | 🇪🇬 Egypt | $1.4B | $1.3B | $0 | $0.2B | | 🇧🇬 Bulgaria | $1.3B | $1.1B | $0.3B | $0 | | 🇮🇹 Italy | $1.2B | $0.8B | $0.4B | $0 | | 🇲🇾 Malaysia | $1.1B | $1.0B | $0 | $0.1B | | 🇨🇿 Czech Republic | $1.0B | $1.1B | $0 | $0 | *Over the time period of Jan 1, 2023 to June 16, 2023 in U.S. dollars After China and the EU bloc, India is the next-largest importer of Russian fossil fuels, having ramped up the amount of fossil fuels imported by more than 10x since before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, largely due to discounted Russian oil. Türkiye is the only other nation to have imported more than $10 billion worth of Russian fossil fuels in 2023, with every other country having imported fewer than $3 billion worth of fuels from Russia this year. Navigating the Crude Reality of Oil Exports Although crude oil is Russia’s chief fossil fuel export, the nation’s Urals crude traded at a $20 per barrel discount to Brent crude throughout most of 2023. While this discount has narrowed to around $16 following Russia’s announcement of further oil export cuts of 500,000 bpd (barrels per day), the price of Urals crude oil remains just 40 cents below the $60 price cap put in place by G7 and EU nations. Alongside Russia, Saudi Arabia also announced it would extend its cut of 1 million bpd until the end of August, with Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman commenting on the country’s solidarity with Russia and saying it would do “whatever is necessary” to support the oil market. While OPEC and OPEC+ nations’ cuts are an attempt at pushing crude oil prices up, increased production from the U.S. has counteracted this. The EIA forecasts 2023 U.S. production to be 12.6 million bpd, surpassing the high in 2019 of 12.3 million bpd. Energy How Big is the Market for Crude Oil? The oil market is bigger than the 10 largest metal markets combined, with production value exceeding $2 trillion annually. How Big is the Market for Crude Oil? This was originally posted on Elements. Sign up to the free mailing list to get beautiful visualizations on real assets and resource megatrends each week. While the global economy relies on many commodities, none come close to the massive scale of the crude oil market. Besides being the primary energy source for transportation, oil is a key raw material for numerous other industries like plastics, fertilizers, cosmetics, and medicine. As a result, the global physical oil market is astronomical in size and has a significant economic and geopolitical influence, with a few countries dominating global oil production. The above infographic puts crude oil’s market size into perspective by comparing it to the 10 largest metal markets combined. To calculate market sizes, we used the latest price multiplied by global production in 2022, based on data from TradingEconomics and the United States Geological Survey ( USGS). Note: This analysis focuses on raw and physical materials, excluding derivative markets and alloy materials like steel. How Big Is the Oil Market? In 2022, the world produced an average of 80.75 million barrels of oil per day (including condensates). That puts annual crude oil production at around 29.5 billion barrels, with the market size exceeding $2 trillion at current prices. That figure dwarfs the combined size of the 10 largest metal markets: | Commodity | 2022 Annual Production | Market Size | | Crude Oil | 29.5 billion barrels | $2.1 trillion | | Iron Ore | 2.6 billion tonnes | $283.4 billion | | Gold | 3,100 tonnes | $195.9 billion | | Copper | 22 million tonnes | $183.3 billion | | Aluminum | 69 million tonnes | $152.6 billion | | Nickel | 3.3 million tonnes | $68.8 billion | | Zinc | 13 million tonnes | $30.9 billion | | Silver | 26,000 tonnes | $19.9 billion | | Molybdenum | 250,000 tonnes | $12.9 billion | | Palladium | 210 tonnes | $9.5 billion | | Lead | 4.5 million tonnes | $9.2 billion | Based on prices as of June 7, 2023. The combined market size of the top 10 metal markets amounts to $967 billion, less than half that of the oil market. In fact, even if we added all the remaining smaller raw metal markets, the oil market would still be far bigger. This also reflects the massive scale of global oil consumption annually, with the resource having a ubiquitous presence in our daily lives. The Big Picture While the oil market towers over metal markets, it’s important to recognize that this doesn’t downplay the importance of these commodities. Metals form a critical building block of the global economy, playing a key role in infrastructure, energy technologies, and more. Meanwhile, precious metals like gold and silver serve as important stores of value. As the world shifts towards a more sustainable future and away from fossil fuels, it’ll be interesting to see how the markets for oil and other commodities evolve. Subscribe Popular — Markets2 weeks ago Visualizing Every Company on the S&P 500 Index — Visual Capitalist3 weeks ago Visualizing Trade: The 2023 Creator Program Challenge Shortlist — Energy2 weeks ago Life Cycle Emissions: EVs vs. Combustion Engine Vehicles — Technology3 weeks ago Ranked: The Most Innovative Companies in 2023 — Finance1 week ago Visualized: The 100 Largest U.S. Banks by Consolidated Assets — Cities3 weeks ago Ranked: The Cities with the Best Work-Life Balance in the World — VC+1 week ago What are Top Investment Managers Holding in Their Portfolios? — Money3 weeks ago Ranked: The Most Affordable U.S. Cities for Home Buyers