Oil Cargoes Set to Flood From Russia Despite OPEC Pledge: Chart

(Bloomberg) -- Russia’s ports will ship the most crude to world markets in at least nine years in April, something of a surprise given the nation’s commitment to cut production of the commodity as part of a pact with OPEC. There are multiple reasons why seaborne exports and output are far from perfectly correlated: the shipments could be compensating for lower piped flows, while temporarily diminished domestic consumption would also drive them up. Nonetheless, it could make May 2, when Russia releases preliminary output data for April, a more interesting day for the oil market.

To contact the reporters on this story: Alaric Nightingale in London at anightingal1@bloomberg.net, Julian Lee in London at jlee1627@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alaric Nightingale at anightingal1@bloomberg.net, John Deane