Pakistan has placed the first order for Russian oil at a discount, writes Reuters. It is expected that oil will be delivered to the country in May. With this deal, Russia gains a new market in addition to India and China , which have become its main importers since Western sanctions.
In turn, due to cheap oil, Pakistan gets a respite against the backdrop of a crisis situation with the balance of payments and critically low foreign exchange reserves. Energy imports account for the bulk of the country's external payments.
Under the deal, Pakistan will only buy crude oil, with imports expected to reach 100,000 barrels a day if the first deal "goes smoothly."
In 2022, Pakistan imported 154,000 barrels of oil per day, according to analysts. Most of this oil was supplied by Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Thus, if in the near future the supply of Russian oil reaches the level of 100,000 barrels per day, this will greatly affect the former suppliers.
Even though Western countries have set a price ceiling of $60 a barrel for anyone who buys Russian oil, India and China are paying prices above that limit, Reuters calculations show. At the same time, they still receive oil at a significant discount relative to its real (pre-war) market price.
After the start of the war in Ukraine, the United States, Great Britain and the European Union agreed to impose an oil embargo, and also introduced a number of restrictions that significantly complicate the supply of Russian oil around the world. Because of this, at first, companies in China and India refused Russian products, but in the end, huge discounts forced them to change their minds . Publicly, representatives of the US and the EU have not yet spoken about secondary sanctions for cooperation with the Russian Federation, but informally the US asked India "not to increase oil purchases too rapidly."