Russia boosts oil exports by most since May as oil prices spike past $108

Russia’s seaborne crude shipments just hit their highest pace in weeks, perfectly timed with an oil price spike that most producers would describe as “convenient.” The four-week average for Russian crude exports climbed to 3.54 million barrels per day through September 13, the largest weekly increase since mid-May.

The catalyst wasn’t anything Moscow engineered. Drone strikes on Saudi Arabia’s East-West Crude Oil Pipeline on September 10-11 temporarily shut down one of the most important oil transit routes on the planet, sending Brent crude past $100 per barrel and peaking around $108-109.

What happened to Saudi oil flows

The East-West pipeline typically moves around 4-5 million barrels per day of Saudi crude, serving as the critical backup route when tensions flare around the Strait of Hormuz. The attacks, attributed to Iran-aligned militias, knocked the pipeline offline with repair estimates ranging from a few days to as long as 4-8 weeks. The potential supply disruption represents roughly 4% of global oil demand.

Russia’s well-timed export surge

In the week ending September 13, Russian crude loadings totaled 27.06 million barrels spread across 38 tankers. Russia’s weekly export revenue jumped by approximately $180 million, bringing total weekly earnings to around $1.9 billion — the highest weekly haul since late June.

Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries have damaged Moscow’s ability to process crude domestically, which means more unrefined oil gets pushed onto export markets instead. When global prices spike, that constraint becomes a feature rather than a bug. Russia ends up selling more raw crude at higher prices, partially offsetting the refining capacity it lost.

China and India have remained willing purchasers of Russian crude throughout the sanctions era. When Saudi barrels are harder to come by, Russian barrels look even more attractive to refiners in Gujarat and Shandong.

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