The global energy crisis is forcing western powers to ease back on their efforts to limit Russian oil trading. The United Kingdom has delayed the plan for coordinated ban with the European Union for providing insurance for vessels carrying Russian oil. This is due to fears of imposing immediate worldwide restrictions would cause crude oil prices to spike.
UK Corporation and Lloyd’s of London are the biggest maritime insurance markets in the world. For any global ban to have any effect, the UK needs to be a part of this ban. The EU went ahead with the ban of Russian oil believing that UK will also follow. The UK has held back from pushing ahead and reasons for this are the concerns that doing so would put a large amount of Russian oil off the make and spike global oil prices.
The UK is hoping that before imposing this ban on Russia, other G7 countries need to agree on the final objectives of the ban. They want to cause economic pain to Russia while reducing economic troubles for the rest of the world in a fragile economic situation of high inflation.
The EU also quietly introduced a subtle amendment to some of the existing restrictions on dealings with Russian oil exporters. Specifically this amendment is most relevant to Rosneft, the Russian state owned oil producer. Previously all European companies were banned from dealing with Rosneft. However, the EU has now introduced a new exemption which says European companies can deal with Rosneft and can potentially pay Rosneft for oil, only if the oil is going to be exported or delivered to countries outside of the EU.