14 tankers stuck near South Korea as Russia struggles to sell Pacific oil – Reuters

14 tankers loaded with 10 million barrels of Russian Sokol crude oil have been sitting off the coast of South Korea, which have not yet been sold due to US sanctions and payment problems, Reuters citing its sources states.

The volume of oil in the tankers, which reaches 1.3 million metric tons, corresponds to more than a month's production from the Sakhalin-1 project, once the main enterprise of the American company Exxon Mobil, which left Russia during the full-scale war.

The volume stored in the tankers is 45 days of production from Sakhalin-1, which averages 220,000 barrels daily.

"Sakhalin-1 was one of the first post-Soviet deals in Russia to be concluded under a production sharing agreement. When Exxon Mobil left in 2022, production dropped to almost zero and has not fully recovered since."

Issues with the sale of Sokol crude oil are among the biggest challenges faced by Russia after the West imposed sanctions on it and one of the most serious disruptions in oil exports in two years.

The US imposed sanctions against the transportation entities of Russian oil sold above the ceiling of $60 per barrel. All their property in the US was blocked, and all related transactions carried out by US persons in particular and within the country were prohibited.

In early November, the US introduced a new package of sanctions against Russia targeting banks, the Lancet drone-making facility, and the Russian government.