EU agrees Russian oil price cap at $60 per barrel

The EU Council has officially agreed to impose a price cap on Russian oil at $60 per barrel. Bloomberg and The New York Times report, citing Andrzej Sados, Polish ambassador to the EU.

“Ambassadors have just reached an agreement on price cap for Russian seaborne oil. Written procedure follows, decision will enter into force on publication in the Official Journal,” the Czech Presidency of the Council of the European Union tweeted.

The cap will be regularly reviewed starting with 15 January to keep the cap at least 5% below the average market level at all times.

“The formal written procedure to give EU approval to the Russia oil price cap has now been launched,” Laurence Norman, a journalist for The Wall Street Journal, tweeted.

Earlier, Reuters reported citing its sources that the EU countries once again failed to agree to a Russian crude price cap because Poland had opposed the proposed limit at $65-70 and insisted on a much lower cap at around $30.

The imposition of a price cap on Russian oil exports was included in the 8th EU sanction package adopted to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine. The Russian crude will be targeted on 5 December, while petroleum products will be sanctioned on 5 February 2023. However, Hungary managed to cancel the price cap on the oil supplied via pipelines. Moreover, the EU imposes export restrictions on several categories of goods.

The Kremlin earlier said that Russia would not trade oil with the countries that impose a price cap.