Yes, that’s what the sanctions are intended to do. Russia should struggle to make any profit from their gas and oil. It would be ideal if they couldn’t sell at all, but forcing them to sell at steep discounts is still very good. This Hormuz straight business has unfortunately caused the price of oil to go up, which will significantly increase the price Russia can sell at.
What’s actually happening here is that Russia is grabbing the market early and undercutting the Burger Reich. Once they’ve secured customers then prices will obviously go up.
What is also happening is that Russia is making more money selling at a discount on the spot market, especially with the price increases happening now, than if they had long term fixed contracts. That’s what all of these morons here in Europe don’t understand either. When they tore up the very favorable contracts they had with Russia and went to buying Russian oil and gas at spot prices and through intermediaries like India, they just put more money in Russia’s pocket.
They’ve been selling oil and gas this entire time, there isn’t any need to secure customers, they already have them. The discount is essentially the effect that they have a smaller pool of buyers, and those buyers piss off a number of other players (countries, buyers, sellers, insurance, etc) by buying from Russia. A few buyers have to also contend with paying a country that has demonstrated a willingness to invade their neighbors. Many of the former Soviet states, for example, have continued to buy Russian oil this entire time, while putting in big efforts to transition away. Their oil and gas purchases have been heavily criticized by people who don’t understand how long it takes to change energy sources.
Russia is obviously able to expand sales to more customers, and diversification makes sense as well. They don’t want to be reliant on one or two big customers here. Also, selling at a discount on spot market still brings in far more revenue than long term pipeline contracts with Europe did. Meanwhile, the west is literally facilitating a genocide in Gaza and people living in western countries have zero moral ground to bray about Russia at this point. Finally, not sure what these big efforts to transition away are exactly. So far, it’s pretty clear that Russia has done far more to transition away from Europe than the other way around.
