If Western countries impose a “real embargo” on Russian oil and gas, then Putin’s invasion of Ukraine could be stopped in just two months, a former senior economic adviser to Putin told the BBC. “I would bet that probably in a month or two, Russian military operations in Ukraine will probably stop, they will stop,” he said. Andrei Hilarionov, who resigned as chief financial adviser to the Kremlin in 2005. A British news outlet. “It’s one of the most effective tools that Western countries still have.” A worker in an oil field owned by Bashneft, Bashkortostan, Russia, in this archive photo on January 28, 2015. (REUTERS / Sergei Karpukhin / Files / Reuters) Oil is Russia’s most lucrative export, accounting for more than a third of the country’s export earnings last year. Russia’s finance ministry says it expects to bring in an additional $ 9.6 billion in energy sales in April due to high oil prices in recent weeks. The European Union banned coal imports from Russia last week, but has so far refused to ban Russian oil imports for fears it could push oil prices even higher. RUSSIA INVASES UKRAINE: LIVE UPDATES President Biden targeted “the main artery of the Russian economy” when he announced a ban on Russian oil imports last month, which accounted for about 8% of total US oil imports last year. “Russian oil will no longer be accepted in US ports and the American people will deal another major blow to Putin’s war machine,” the president said in announcing the ban. FILE PHOTO: An overview shows an oil refinery at Yarakta Oil, owned by the Irkutsk Oil Company (INK), in the Irkutsk region, Russia, March 10, 2019. Photo taken on March 10, 2019. REUTERS / Vasily Fedosenko (REUTERS Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters Photos) Biden announced the release of about 1 million barrels of strategic stock last month to combat rising prices and targeted oil companies, accusing them of “not playing their part” and “choosing to make huge profits without additional investments to help Supply. ” SHELL SAYS RUSSIA’S EXIT HAS ALREADY COST 5 BILLION Republicans, meanwhile, have criticized the Biden administration for canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, which would bring oil from Canada to the United States. “The United States is importing nearly 600,000 barrels of oil a day from Russia – a sum that could be offset by the more than 800,000 barrels of Keystone XL pipeline delivered each day if the Biden administration had not stood its ground.” , Senator Tim Scott, RS.C., He wrote in an article for Fox News last month. The sign appears on a gas pump at an Exxon gas station in Brooklyn, New York, USA, November 23, 2021. (REUTERS / Andrew Kelly / Reuters) Biden also temporarily suspended oil and gas lease sales on public lands during his first days in office and has been taken to court by several states that oppose the termination, but the Biden government said they would resume them last month. Meanwhile, Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Energy and Commerce for Oversight and Research have criticized oil companies for allegedly raising prices. Democrats and the Biden administration are discouraging banks from financing oil and gas projects and operations as part of their strategy to reduce fossil fuel use, and the Biden administration often promotes electric vehicles to replace internal combustion engines. At the same time, the Biden government has been flirting with people like Iran and Venezuela to make up for lost oil since the Keystone XL cancellation and to replace Russian oil, a move that energy experts see as political and wrong. Ryan Sitton, an oil and gas engineer, founder of Pinnacle Reliability and a former Texas energy regulator with experience in Venezuela, said the Biden administration and Democrats “owe it to this subversive narrative against oil and gas that is so subversive.” for the US economy. ” “If you are going to win a Democratic primary, you have to be so hard on oil and gas that any hint of being thoughtful or pro-US is almost unfounded,” he told Fox Business in March. GET FOX BUSINESS IN ENGINE BY CLICKING HERE West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures fell to $ 94.79 a barrel on Monday, hitting a 14-year high of $ 123.70 on March 7. An average gallon of gas in the United States was $ 4.11 on Monday, up from about $ 4.33 a month ago, according to the AAA. Reuters contributed to this report.
