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How The Western Response To The Russia-Ukraine War Is Remaking The WorldOne of the ways global trade and finance risks being transformed by the Western response to the Russia-Ukraine war is in oil shipping. As Credit Suisse strategist Zoltan Pozsar explained in his latest note, a German boycott of Russian oil would mean that instead of Russian Urals crude being shipped in Aframax tankers (600,000 barrels capacity) on a one-week journey to Hamburg, that oil would have to be transferred to Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs; 2 million barrels capacity), a process which itself can take weeks, and then go on a two month cruise to China. However, to keep oil flowing globally at current levels would require 10% more VLCCs than currently exist. And it would also require more financing for commodity traders than currently exists.
