A scheme for supplying petroleum products has been discovered in Australia, which in fact allows the country to continue using russian oil, despite sanctions.
This is reported by The Guardian, citing data from the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).
After the full-scale invasion of russia, Australia announced its refusal to directly purchase russian fuel. However, since 2023, the country has imported more than 3 million tons of petroleum products of russian origin.
These supplies pass through Singapore's Jurong port, a large logistics hub, partly associated with the Australian bank Macquarie. It is there that the russian oil is blended or processed, after which it is registered as fuel from "another country of origin" and supplied to the Australian market.
CREA expert Vaibhav Raghunandan explained that Australia's sanctions rules allow the purchase of fuel from third countries, even if the source material is russian.
"This is a significant loophole that Australian buyers are using. Acting within the framework of the law, they are certainly going beyond the bounds of ethics," he said.
The expert emphasizes that such a mechanism "undermines Australia's support for Ukraine" and actually ensures tax revenues for the russian budget.
According to the Australian government, almost a quarter of all fuel imported since January 2023 has come from Singapore. And Singapore, in turn, has imported more than 22 million tons of russian oil products during this time, some of which passed through the port of Jurong.
Macquarie stated that the terminal operates in accordance with Singaporean and international law. However, they did not answer the question of whether the bank received a profit from these transactions.
As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, on October 22, the US Department of the Treasury announced the introduction of new sanctions against russia. The restrictions include Rosneft and Lukoil, as well as their 34 subsidiaries.
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