Oil sanctions hitting, but NOT crippling, Russia

Yes, sanctions are biting on Russian oil. No, contra a meme-poster on Medium, Russia is not doomed. 

In his response to my response to his semi-interesting “Schrödinger’s Sanctions” piece, Yaakov C Lui-Hyden claimed that Urals oil was indeed trading below sanctions prices and that Russia was losing money. He also claimed that Russian cuts were fictitious because Russian production had been declining for a decade or more.

Reality? This, which is an expanded version of my response to his second response.

First, fair enough on Ural oil price, which I know is the mainstay. That said, Urals is trading at a $30/bbl discount to Brent, NOT a $30/bbl discount off its old price. That said, as I mentioned before, that gets us back to the OPEC+ cut. 

And, per that link, your claim about Russian production cuts being a farce comes off as handwaving. If your farce were really true, then why would Russia be lining up ghost fleet tankers and why would these tankers be obliging them? The reality is that Russian oil production has been stable for 20 years. (His response to this ignored this issue entirely, indicating he can't be taken that seriously.)

Beyond THAT, also from OIl Price: China and India are NOT abiding by G7 price caps. Now, it’s true that G7 actions give China and India room to extract a de facto price cap. But an actual one? Not happening, and definitely not happening if WTI/Brent hit $100/bbl. (His response to this was little more than doubling down on his original.)

NOT a farce: Ukraine’s been losing a shitload of troops and has nothing but green cannon fodder in undermanned, undermunitioned brigades for that vaunted spring offensive. And, please don’t claim that Pentagon leak is actually Russian disinformation. (His response to this was saying he'd never talked about this issue. True, but I guess he doesn't understand the idea of pre-emptive shots across the bow. Anyway, he didn't get another response on Medium. Not worth the time.)