Russian Oil Delivery Time To China Almost Doubled Due To Sanctions
- 14.11.2025, 13:49
It's about the Northern Sea Route.
The Russian authorities have long prioritized the development of the Northern Sea Route (NSR), which makes it possible to significantly reduce the time it takes to deliver cargo between Asia and Europe. However, for Russia itself, which transports oil to China from the Arctic and Baltic Sea ports, all the time gains have come to naught this year due to the sanctions imposed on its exporting ships.
The NSR, whose capabilities are growing thanks to the rapid melting of ice in the Arctic, can almost halve the time it takes for cargo to travel from Asia to Europe. But this year, delivery times for Russian oil tankers have increased by nearly three weeks from 2024 to more than seven weeks, according to Bloomberg, based on an analysis of ship movement data.
All tankers traveling along the NSR from Murmansk and the Baltic ports of Primorsk and Ust-Luga are under U.S. sanctions. Joe Biden's administration, before his departure on January 10, 2025, put about 180 ships on the sanctions list, including those operating on Arctic routes. As a result, the time to deliver oil to China from Murmansk increased from 27 days last year to 48 this year, and from the Baltic - from 31 to 50 days.
Meanwhile, the delivery time around Europe via the Suez Canal has not changed much: from the Baltic tankers take an average of 53 days instead of 51. Most ships on the western route are not subject to American sanctions.
Transporting oil from Murmansk through the Suez Canal is now even faster than through the NSR: it takes 42 days. True, it is still much longer than through the Arctic last year. In 2024, by the way, tankers from Murmansk went to China only via the Arctic route; apparently, they started to be sent via the Western route in 2025 as an alternative.
After Washington imposed sanctions against Rosneft and Lukoil in October, about 70-80% of Russia's oil exports, as well as hundreds of vessels blacklisted by the United States, the European Union, and the United Kingdom, fell under the restrictive measures.
The latest sanctions "could have the most far-reaching implications for global oil markets" and carry "the risk of a significant decline" in Russian oil production, the International Energy Agency said Thursday.
One reason for the delay on the route through the NSR is that most of the sub-sanctioned tankers are now reloading oil onto other ships at sea, which increases the cost and time to deliver the cargo, Bloomberg wrote. This is done to hide the country of origin of the oil or to mix it with other grades. Of the 18 oil tankers that have passed through the NSR this year, 11 have then transshipped the oil to other ships off Russia's Pacific coast, turning off transponders to make them harder to track.
The tankers may also take longer to find a buyer but end up bringing it to Chinese ports.