An EU-agreed partial boycott of Russian oil will not come into effect until the end of this year, so there are now no legal obligations prohibiting the trade in Russian oil (products). Nevertheless, other countries are voluntarily reducing those imports. At the beginning of April, Climate Minister Rob Jetten also appealed to large Dutch companies to do so. “Don’t wait for a European oil boycott to come, but take your responsibility yourself,” he told BNR Nieuwsradio at the beginning of April.
MPs Piri (PvdA) and Omtzigt again asked questions this week about the development of import volumes since the start of the war. In April they did that too; they then asked for a quick answer but had to wait almost two months for it, and then the crucial data was still missing.
Virtually unhindered
The MPs refer, among other things, to data collected on the basis of ship movements, which show that the Russian oil trade in Rotterdam continues almost unimpeded and at full steam – despite the cabinet’s appeal and despite the fact that other countries do limit their imports of Russian oil. reduce oil.
Omtzigt: ‘The United States and Sweden, for example, have already completely reduced their imports of Russian oil. The cabinet has also called for this, but it seems that we are importing more Russian oil than ever before.’ The MPs are annoyed that the cabinet hesitated for so long to answer their questions about this. ‘The statistics don’t suddenly stop in March,’ says Omtzigt. ‘I want to know exactly how it is, how dependent and how solidarity we are.’
In an overview of Visual Capitalist, based on data from the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, which was published at the end of June, the Netherlands ranks prominently fourth in Russian oil imports, behind China, Germany and Italy. The port of Rotterdam has always been a major transit point for Russian and Belarusian oil products and continues to do so. In a list of seventeen countries that have restricted their imports, sometimes very significantly, the Netherlands is at the bottom with an estimated restriction of only 5 percent.
‘The Dutch reduction is minimal,’ says Kati Piri, ‘certainly in comparison with other countries. The oil traders in the port of Rotterdam were probably able to fill their pockets when the discussion started in the EU about an oil boycott.’
79 ships
According to the calculations, the Netherlands received a total of 79 ships with Russian crude oil between 24 February (the renewed Russian invasion) and 4 June. One ship, the Sunny Liger, received brief media attention. The ship could not be unloaded in Sweden because the unions simply said ‘no’. The port workers of Rotterdam also refused to unload it. According to director Niek Stam of FNV Havens, this was ‘a case of solidarity with the Swedish dock workers’. Finally, the Russian tanker sailed on to Barcelona.
Stam agrees that Russian oil imports have always continued, and even increased when there was talk of an upcoming EU boycott. According to calculations by TankerTrackers Russian oil imports even rose by a quarter in April compared to the previous month. ‘Everyone was preparing for that boycott and the price then went up’, says Stam.
Between February 24 and June 4, the European Union is said to have accounted for 61 percent of Russia’s estimated $98 billion in revenue from fossil fuel exports. Russian President Putin said this week that the sanctions have created “problems” for Russia, “but certainly not the kind that the initiators of the economic blitzkrieg against Russia were counting on.”