Russian oil does not disappear from the global market when it leaves Baltic or Far East ports. Often, it simply reappears under another name or label. In the waters surrounding Singapore – one of the planet's main energy and maritime hubs – hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil and fuel oil from Russia are transferred from ship to ship, mixed with fuels from other origins, and subsequently re-exported to Asian markets under a new commercial identity. The process, known as blending, supported by a system increasingly reliant on the so-called “ghost fleet” of convenience tankers, dilutes the product's traceability and allows derivatives linked to Russian oil to continue circulating legally within the global energy system despite Western sanctions.

The executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Fatih Birol, warned this Monday that the cushion offered by commercial reserves accumulated before the war in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz will end in a matter of weeks. Reserves "are depleting very rapidly," Birol noted in statements to the press collected by Efe during the first day of the G7 Finance Ministers' meeting in Paris.

The war in the Middle East has rapidly driven up oil and natural gas prices, with one clear strategic geographic point becoming Iran's primary weapon: the Strait of Hormuz. This maritime passage carries approximately a quarter to a fifth of the world's crude oil and natural gas. Its closure by Iran, aside from disrupting global energy markets, directly impacts the region's economies, as they cannot sell the oil and gas they extract and, in some cases, have had to shut down their refineries and liquefaction plants. Furthermore, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz threatens shortages of crude oil, gas, and petroleum products in many countries, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, which are the largest buyers of products from producers on the Arabian Peninsula, as illustrated in the infographic.