The largest ice cover in the Baltic Sea threatens Russian oil exports

The Gulf of Finland, through which about 40% of Russia's oil exports pass, is now almost completely covered with ice, according to Bloomberg.

According to port administration orders, the Primorsk oil terminal and the port of Vysotsk have banned ships without ice class certification from entering without individual escort by icebreakers. The waiting time for ships in queues to form convoys has already increased by 5-7 days.

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According to Alexander Kolesov, chief meteorologist of St. Petersburg, the area of ice cover continues to grow, and similar weather conditions were last observed in 2010 and 2011. The situation is complicated by an acute shortage of tankers with reinforced hulls, which has already led to delays in the shipment of crude oil and fuel.

To stabilize the situation, Russia is transferring the icebreakers Sibir and Murmansk from the Arctic to increase the fleet in the Gulf of Finland to six units by the end of the month. The Russian Ministry of Transport has warned ship operators of the need to take difficult conditions into account when planning voyages.

If the ice thickness increases by another 5 centimeters (to 30-50 cm), the ports of Ust-Luga, Primorsk, and Vysotsk plan to completely ban ships without ice class from entering starting March 1, regardless of whether they are accompanied. The Russian Ministry of Transport predicts this level of freezing in the coming weeks.

It is not yet known how these restrictions will affect oil trade. As of Monday, there were 23 tankers in the area. Only three of them arrived last week, but they have not yet been loaded.

However, oil exports from Primorsk in the first half of February had already fallen to 490,000 barrels per day. This is a third less than last year's figures and 50% less than in the same period in 2024.

Photo: PortalMorski.pl.

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