“Russian Oil Delivered to China via Myanmar to Reduce Route Length and Save Time”

Delivery of Russian oil from Murmansk to China is the longest route. To reduce it, raw materials are delivered not to China itself, but to Myanmar, from where oil is transported by pipeline. Tankers save a week of travel.

Two tankers with Russian oil from Murmansk are heading to Myanmar. According to the automatic identification system, NS Burgas of the Russian Sovcomflot will deliver tomorrow, May 31, up to 156,000 tons of oil, or 1.1 million barrels, to the country. The tanker “Leonid Loza” follows him. He plans to arrive in the deep water port of Kyaukpyu at the end of June and will also bring up to 156,000 tons of oil.

Last year, Myanmar’s military authorities planned to start importing Russian oil products, but not oil. Moreover, the country does not have such capacities for processing.

According to Energy Intelligence, oil from Myanmar is transported to the PetroChina refinery in Kunming, which is the capital of Yunnan province. The 770-kilometer oil pipeline is operated by its parent company China National Petroleum Corp, which owns the project on an equal footing with Myanmar’s state-owned company.

According to the publication, deliveries began in February and by the end of April amounted to 3 million barrels.

The route from Murmansk to China, in the absence of navigation on the Northern Sea Route, is perhaps the longest in the world. Its length to the southeastern ports of China, where oil is traditionally delivered, is about 12,000 miles. And the route to Myanmar cuts it by more than two thousand miles. Tankers go to the country on the coast of the Indian Ocean for 37 days and the time saving is a week.

The option of an oil pipeline through Myanmar is not the only option for optimizing the supply of Russian oil. So, since the end of December, supertankers of Chinese companies have been on duty near the Strait of Gibraltar, where oil tankers of the Aframax class, which come from the Baltic ports of Russia, are pumping oil.

As reported EADaily , the main supplies of Russian oil were redirected to Asia – to India and China. Rosatom and oil companies are working on redirecting Russian oil supplies from Baltic ports to the Northern Sea Route (NSR). The new path for Russian oil to Asia will be rocky, experts warn.