Asia Grabs Europe’s Oil After Russia Sanctions Redraw Trading

Millions of barrels of oil that would normally be preserve of oil refineries in Europe are instead heading to Asia as US sanctions on Russia revive one of the market’s great arbitrage trades.

Asian companies are already on course to collect almost 400,000 barrels a day of oil from the North Sea and Kazakhstan next month, vessel tracking and trading data compiled by Bloomberg show. That puts shipments on course for a 10-month high and revives a trade that had been largely dormant for months. A major Indian refiner has also been buying large amounts of oil from West Africa and the US.