Russia bans petroleum product imports until October 2020! Does the oil industry care?

Well apparently not! Little or no analysis by commentators of the decison taken by Putin et al to ban the import of oil products. That’s likely because Russia is a major exporter of crude oil and some petoleum products (particularly heavy oils due to the limited upgrading capability of much of the Russian oil refining industry). So, in normal times, Russian imports are not an issue. But these are not normal times. As result of the complex and changing oil tax laws in Russia a free market doesn’t exist.. yet. Russia ‘fixes’ the minimum price ‘at the pump’ to give some level of protection to an inefficient oil refining industry….. but in the era of very low oil and product prices we have been witnessing, the door opened to ‘entrepreneurs’ to import cheap products and sell on to benefit from the margin available from non market related minimum sales prices!