Goldman Sachs said in a note that Moscow’s trading partners are paying more for Russian crude than estimated by quoted prices, mitigating the impact of Western sanctions on Russia.
The bank saw, in a note dated February 10, that the gap between the actual average price paid and the offered price widened since last March, and reached about $25 per barrel in December.
“We think that the resilience in production so far may partly reflect that the actual price paid for Russian oil is probably much more than the price estimates quoted,” Goldman said.
In response to the latest Western sanctions, including price ceilings imposed to limit Moscow’s revenues, Russia said on Friday it would cut oil production by 500,000 barrels per day in March this year.
Goldman Sachs last week lowered its forecast for oil prices for this year and next, but said it still expected prices to rise by December gradually to $100 a barrel.
He pointed out that the decline in production from Russia is a “major factor” in those expectations, along with the return of Chinese demand after the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions in the largest consumer of commodities in the world.
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