How the Russian oil has kept North Korea’s national economy in one place

Economy Nilgun Salim
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Russia voted for imposing the new sanctions against North Korea within the UN Security Council, even if they also include new restrictions related to their resources of oil.

The Russian energy source plays a much significant role than we all estimated in this country’s survival, writes Deutsche Welle.

Washington would like to completely ban oil exports to North Korea, but its administration has repeatedly became stuck when they stumbled upon the Russian and the Chinese opposition.

Apparently, starting from now on, there will be no oil embargo.

Instead, limits have been imposed on the supply of petroleum starting with 1^st October.

From 2018, North Korea will be able to import only about two million barrels of oil per year.

Depending on estimates, this would mean a 10-50% reduction in oil imports from outside. Until now, it was believed that North Korea’s largest oil supplier would be China, but imports from Russia have steadily increased in these past few years.

According to Putin, Russia exports only about 40.000 tons of petroleum and petroleum products per quarter to North Korea, a very small volume according to it.

However, Russia almost doubled exports of oil products to North Korea in the first half of the year.

In fact, oil exports could be even higher than the official figures indicate.

According to a former North Korean official living in the US, Russia actually supplies Pyongyang between 200.000 and 300.000 tons of oil annually.

If these figures were true, the volumes exported would be more than three times higher than the official figures suggest.

Reason: Transactions take place in gray areas away from official markets, and the resource is often delivered through China.

Most Russian oil deliveries to North Korea are carried out with the help of intermediaries, says Artyom Lukin of the Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok, Russia.

Such actions would be a violation of US sanctions against Pyongyang. In June, Washington imposed sanctions against the CPI, a Russian private company administered by Eduard Khudainatov, former CEO of Rosneft. The sanctions also reached the NNK-Primornefteprodukt subsidiary of the CPI. Khudainatov said that sanctions have a political motivation.