OIL: Russian Northern Sea Route Crude Flows to China Pick Up

Russian Northern Sea Route crude shipments across the Arctic has been off to a record start in July with already five tankers heading to China according to Bloomberg ship tracking.

• Voyage duration of two tankers has already been lengthened as they needed icebreaker assistance.
• A record amount of more than 3.2 million barrels of crude has headed east along the route in the first 40 days of this year’s navigation season. But that’s still a tiny amount compared with the total of more than 110 million barrels exported by Russia over the same period.