This June, Ukraine imposed sanctions on Lukoil, Russia's largest private oil company.
Hungary imports about 70% of its domestic oil needs from Russia, and about half of this comes from Lukoil, through the Druzhba oil pipeline that passes through Ukraine.
When the oil flow through Ukraine was reduced, Hungarian officials warned that the country could face fuel shortages in the coming months.
Slovakia buys about 40% of its oil needs from Lukoil via the same Druzhba pipeline.
Hungary and Slovakia want the European Commission to pressure Ukraine to lift the sanctions so that Lukoil's oil can continue to flow through Ukraine's oil pipeline.
According to RTE News, the amount of Russian oil imported by Hungary and Slovakia is insignificant compared to the volumes bought by larger economies, especially in Asia.
The EU sanctions, along with the G7 and Norway, aimed at banning the import of Russian crude oil were introduced in December 2022 and banned Russian refined oil products from February 2023. These measures target Russian oil transported by sea, not by pipeline.
In a sense, the EU and G7 sanctions have been effective, at least in the West. European countries (except Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic) have abandoned Russian black gold and found other sources to replace this commodity.
Last February, the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) based in Helsinki, Finland, estimated that Western sanctions caused the Russian economy to lose about 12% of its oil revenue compared to before the conflict, equivalent to 3.4 billion euros per month.
But Russian companies quickly increased exports to other major economies, offering cheaper oil and finding companies outside the sanctioning countries to transport oil worldwide.
The Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) estimates that Russia's oil revenue in 2023 will reach about 183 billion USD.
"There has been a shift in global oil flows," Georg Zachmann, a senior energy expert at the Bruegel research group in Brussels, Belgium, told RTE News.
India spent 70 billion USD to import Russian oil last year and now imports ten times more fuel from Russia than in 2021.
Analysts say India bought Russian oil at a discount after sanctions were imposed when Russia had many oil tankers full. Since then, India has become Russia's largest importer of seaborne crude oil.
India's increased oil imports have largely offset the gap left by European countries abandoning Russian crude oil.
However, China remains the number one importer, spending nearly 98 billion USD to import Russian oil last year. China imports about 60% of its Russian oil via tankers, with the rest transported through the ESPO oil pipeline from Siberia.
Turkey and Brazil have also increased their Russian oil imports since Western sanctions took effect, with increases of 38 billion USD and 12 billion USD respectively in 2023, although most of what these two countries buy is refined oil, not crude oil. Malaysia and Singapore closely follow these countries.
