Group of Seven leaders meeting in Italy this week will pledge to tighten enforcement of their price cap on Russian oil, choke the Kremlin’s future energy projects and reduce Moscow’s revenues from metals, according to a statement seen by Bloomberg.
“We will continue to apply significant pressure on Russian revenues from energy and other commodities,” the statement, which is expected to be published on Friday, says.
The G-7 price cap on Russian crude oil and petroleum products bans western shipowners, insurers and intermediaries from providing vessels and services for cargoes priced above the thresholds.
Though the restrictions prompted a pivot away from western insurance and a need for alternatives, Moscow has been able to skirt much of the impact by assembling a fleet of tankers operating in difficult-to-trace jurisdictions and turning to non-western service providers to ship its barrels to new markets such as India.
The US, UK and EU have recently started to sanction vessels involved in those shipments.
The G-7 “will take steps, including sanctions and innovative enforcement activities leveraging respective geographies, to combat Russia’s use of deceptive alternative shipping practices to circumvent our sanctions by way of its shadow fleet,” said the statement.
G-7 leaders will also pledge to do more to impede the “development of future energy projects and disrupting access to the goods and services on which those projects rely,” and will continue to reduce Russia’s revenues from metals.
The focus of much of the G-7 summit taking place this week in the southern Italian region of Apulia has been on Russia’s war against Ukraine, with the group agreeing a $50 billion loan syndicate plan to use profits generated by frozen Russian assets to aid Kyiv.
G-7 to Tap Frozen Russian Assets for $50 Billion to Ukraine
Other highlights are:
G-7 closely following the dispute over Guyana’s oil-rich territory, known as the Essequibo, which Venezuela has claimed as its own.
Call on China to stop helping Russia and will say that Beijing’s trade policies are “are leading to global spillovers, market distortions and harmful overcapacity in a growing range of sectors, undermining our workers, industries, and economic resilience and security.”
G-7 reiterate they are not intent on decoupling nor are they trying to harm China or thwart its economic development.
Affirm the obligation of states to fully comply with the Outer Space Treaty, “including not to place in orbit around the Earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, install such weapons on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space in any other manner.” That’s a reference to earlier US warnings that Russia has plans to deploy an anti-satellite nuclear weapon in space.
G-7 will expand the scope of sanctions to target companies and banks, including in China, helping and enabling Russia to circumvent sanctions on goods and technologies used in weapons.
The G-7 were joined in Italy by the leaders of Argentina, Brazil, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine and the Pope.
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