Well, the embargo by the EU countries on the supply of petroleum products from Russia, which has entered into force (the "full", but with some very significant exceptions), as well as the price limit for their transportation, introduced by the European Union and the G7 countries, as expected, with yesterday have become as commonplace as the recent measures against crude oil imported by Russian industrialists.
And, let's immediately try to reassure some especially nervous readers, this will certainly affect the economy of our country.
Any restrictions are unpleasant.
But the impact will be even much less than the same bans on crude oil.
Incidentally, the deliveries of which, after similar bans, first sank somewhat, but today, according to official statistics, they have already fully recovered.
But this is what is called marginal notes.
It's even easier here.
Well, as for the personal well-being of a citizen, if, of course, he does not work in the field of oil products trade, this ceiling, together with the embargo, will have approximately no effect at all.
Now let's try to explain.
And to begin with, we simply state: maybe we would like everything to be different (trading processed products is always more pleasant and, most importantly, more profitable than just raw materials).
But the country's budget so far, alas, depends on the export of petroleum products, to put it mildly, much less than on the banal sale of crude oil and gas.
And, let's be honest, at the current moment in time, most Russian manufacturers have already redirected the main flows either to the Asia-Pacific markets (South and Southeast Asia), or generally somewhere in Latin America.
Even out, they say, they got to Brazil with their diesel engine.
Or, excuse me, they included various “schematoses” (whether they get used to it, they didn’t run from their native tax authorities before) mainly through the Middle East.
Well, or through the Far - here as someone is more fortunate.
Although the rest, including quite "civilized" traders, in this fascinating process, too, to put it mildly, do not lag behind their by no means pale-faced brothers.
So there will certainly be some difficulties here.
The same “gags” with Russian Railways in the Far East, as far as I understand, have already begun.
The oilmen and railroad workers are already actively arguing at the level of the government itself.
And this is unpleasant enough for a not-so-sustainable new logistics.
But at the same time, neither our budget nor (which is much more important, forgive) the entire economy of the country in connection with this “embargo and the introduction of a price ceiling” seems to be expecting anything mortally dangerous.
Even the most stubborn Western and pro-Western analysts understand this now.
The algorithm is understandable.
Even how Russia will continue to act in response is quite clear to all sane people.
What do we have, what is in the West.
Although all of the above, of course, does not mean that our industry managers can sit quietly waiting until the corpse of an unlucky enemy floats past belly-up.
The corpse of the enemy, sorry, you still have to earn it, so you have to turn around.
But, in general and as a whole, this, sorry, is not a tragedy, but simply a matter of price.
Well, or to be more precise or more honest - the price of the issue.
And it doesn't seem to be for us.
Because the consequences of this, to put it mildly, questionable from the point of view of the strict science of economics, decisions will certainly be.
And if we, that is, those against whom they seem to be directed, are not affected as significantly as the authors of this delightful document in their ingenuous logic would like, then they will undoubtedly affect someone much more radically.
And in this particular case, it will not even be Europe.
Which will simply buy our same oil products, only through the aforementioned “schematosis” and / or from Middle Eastern or Far Eastern intermediaries: everything is clear with this, degreased Europeans will simply pay another tribute, they are, in general, no strangers.
But for the all-powerful, it would seem, at the current moment in time, the global financial sector, coordinated by who knows who and who knows where, the situation is now much more unpleasant.
One small example.
Here, at the end of last week, the American Reuters agency, you know, got quite worried when it learned that Indian refineries began paying for a significant part of Russian oil supplies in the national currency of the UAE, dirhams, declaring that in order to avoid any nonsense with secondary sanctions and other “stretch price ceilings, of course.
Well, in fact, taking this trade out of the so-called dollar zone.
Reuters even cites these figures with reference to the transaction data provided by the sources, they simply drop out of the usual global figures: by the way, to the question of stuffing from time to time about the “fall in prices for Urals”, but this is so, by the way.
That for the oil dollar trade is much more dangerous than it seems at first glance.
Yes, and the second one too.
Because it actually undermines the foundations of the current model of global trade in oil and petroleum products, bringing, from the point of view of American financial analysts, a significant part of this very trade into the shadows, into the gray zone.
Yes, and discrediting the institution of exchange pricing.
And this directly affects virtually all modern global trade and financial institutions: from the control of financial flows to the very “market pricing mechanism”.
In principle, we have already written about this more than once, modern humanity, as it were, already has such an experience.
So, for example, what is called, by default, no one hides from anyone that the gold that is traded on modern exchanges is not gold at all.
And so.
Futures.
In fact, nothing but the same paper money is not secured by a paper certificate.
It is called so in slang - "paper gold", not at all embarrassed by this.
The real, physical, or, as it is also called for some reason, monetary gold has a completely different pricing mechanism and is not traded on the stock exchanges in principle.
But it's just gold.
After the abolition of the "gold standard" by the West, it is quite a common commodity.
Oil in the modern world, including the financial one, is a substance of a completely different quality and character.
It is she, again by default, that makes the dollar a dollar (the slang term “petrodollar” is also by no means accidental).
And the withdrawal of a significant part of oil transactions from the dollar zone carries, to put it mildly, very significant risks for a very fragile modern financial system.
So here is also the price of the issue, and much higher.
Or, again, just a matter of price.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.