G-7 pledge to step up action on Russia oil fleet, energy, metals

Group of Seven leaders meeting in Italy this week will pledge to tighten enforcement of their price cap on Russian oil, choke the Kremlin’s future energy projects and reduce Moscow’s revenues from metals.

“We will continue to apply significant pressure on Russian revenues from energy and other commodities,” the statement, which is expected to be published on June 14, a statement says, Bloomberg reports.

The G-7 price cap on Russian crude oil and petroleum products bans western shipowners, insurers and intermediaries from providing vessels and services for cargoes priced above the thresholds.

Though the restrictions prompted a pivot away from western insurance and a need for alternatives, Moscow has been able to skirt much of the impact by assembling a fleet of tankers operating in difficult-to-trace jurisdictions and turning to non-western service providers to ship its barrels to new markets such as India.

The US, UK and EU have recently started to sanction vessels involved in those shipments.

The G-7 “will take steps, including sanctions and innovative enforcement activities leveraging respective geographies, to combat Russia’s use of deceptive alternative shipping practices to circumvent our sanctions by way of its shadow fleet,” said the statement.

G-7 leaders will also pledge to do more to impede the “development of future energy projects and disrupting access to the goods and services on which those projects rely,” and will continue to reduce Russia’s revenues from metals.

The focus of much of the G-7 summit taking place this week in the southern Italian region of Apulia has been on Russia’s war against Ukraine, with the group agreeing a $50 billion loan syndicate plan to use profits generated by frozen Russian assets to aid Kyiv.