Record Baltic Sea ice cover could disrupt Russian oil exports – Bloomberg

Record levels of ice cover in the waters around Russia's key Baltic ports could significantly reduce crude exports due to a shortage of specialised vessels.

Source: Bloomberg, citing port authority orders and industry experts

Details: The Gulf of Finland, which handles around 40% of Russia's seaborne oil exports, is now almost completely frozen.

Port authorities have barred vessels without ice-class certification from entering the Primorsk oil terminal and the port of Vysotsk unless escorted individually by icebreakers. The time ships spend waiting at the assembly point for icebreaker convoys en route to Baltic ports has increased by five to seven days.

According to Alexander Kolesov, St Petersburg's chief meteorologist, the ice coverage is continuing to expand. The last time similar conditions were observed was in February 2010 and 2011, he said. The situation is worsened by a severe shortage of tankers with reinforced hulls, which has caused delays in loading crude oil and fuel.

To stabilise operations, Russia is redeploying the icebreakers Sibir and Murmansk from the Arctic, increasing the icebreaker fleet in the Gulf of Finland to six vessels by the end of the month. Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Transport has warned shipping operators to account for difficult conditions when planning voyages.

If the ice thickness increases by another 5 centimetres (reaching 30-50 cm), the ports of Ust-Luga, Primorsk and Vysotsk plan to completely ban vessels without ice-class certification from 1 March, even if escorted. The ministry expects this level of freezing in the coming weeks.

Quote: "It's uncertain how the conditions are affecting the oil trade so far. There were 23 tankers in the area as of Monday. Of those, only three arrived last week but haven't yet loaded, vessel tracking compiled by Bloomberg shows.

However, oil exports from Primorsk fell to 490,000 barrels a day in the first half of February, a drop of a third from a year earlier and 50% from the same period in 2024."

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