Russia’s economically critical oil industry is getting battered as Western buyers shun the country’s crude. Moscow is struggling to replace lost sales in the West with sales in emerging Asian markets. Analysts are predicting that Russia will have to reduce output in the coming months, even suggesting that it could have a permanent impact on the country’s production potential. Russia’s oil industry—a vital source of budget revenues—is already showing signs of slowdown as Western buyers shun Russian oil while Moscow struggles to replace lost sales in the West with sales in emerging Asian markets. The war Putin started in Ukraine is hitting home: storage capacity is full, infrastructure and shipping logistics prevent Russian from exporting all the oil unwanted in the West to China and India, refineries are cutting run rates as product storage is overflowing, and as a result, companies are scaling back crude production. This comes at […]