Russia’s Crude Oil Shipments Surge Ahead of OPEC+ Meeting

Russia’s crude oil shipments jumped by 570,000 barrels per day (bpd) last week, to 3.36 million bpd, just ahead of the OPEC+ meeting which will discuss on Thursday the group’s production plans for early next year. More vessels loading from Russia’s western ports drove the surge in seaborne shipments in the week to December 1, according to tanker-tracking data monitored by Bloomberg. The four-week average crude oil exports by sea also rose, for the first time in three weeks, per the data reported by Bloomberg’s Julian Lee…