London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

EU talks on fresh Russian oil price caps go to the wire

EU talks on fresh Russian oil price caps go to the wire

Ambassadors to meet again on Friday as Sunday deadline looms.
EU countries failed to strike a deal on a price cap for Russian oil products, with a deadline for settling the price now just days away.

Talks between EU ambassadors that were due to resume on Thursday have now been postponed until Friday while diplomats seek a compromise, six EU diplomats said. The European Commission last week proposed that — as part of a G7 coalition — the EU should enforce a price cap of $100 per barrel on products like diesel which trade above the price of crude oil and $45 for those that trade at a discount to crude.

But Poland and the three Baltic countries have pushed for lower caps and for the existing G7 price cap on Russian crude oil to be lowered from the current $60 per barrel. Russia's Urals export blend crude oil has been trading at between $46 and $52 per barrel in January. The more hawkish EU countries want to drive down the crude cap to between $40 and $50 to curb the fossil fuel revenues that fund Vladimir Putin's war on Ukraine. Diesel currently trades at around $120 to $130 per barrel.

An EU-wide ban on Russian oil products — those from crude oil, such as diesel, gasoline and jet fuel — comes into force this Sunday, February 5, presenting a hard deadline for agreement.

The G7 coalition price cap is due to come into force at the same time so that Western shipping firms and insurance companies can continue facilitating Russian oil exports sold at or below the cap level. The EU ban and the G7 caps are intended to work in parallel to trim Russia’s income while avoiding a major shock to global energy markets.

No progress was achieved at a meeting of EU ambassadors on Wednesday, which also discussed a new EU sanctions package on Russia’s ally Belarus. Three EU diplomats said that hawkish countries, spearheaded by Lithuania, are also pushing back against exemptions within the Belarus sanctions package for fertilizer, inserted to reflect other countries’ concerns about global food security.

The European Commission will now continue deliberations behind closed doors, with a view to finally striking a deal at the next meeting of ambassadors on Friday. Similar last-minute disagreements took place late last year over the price cap on Russian crude oil, with an original proposal of $65 to $70 per barrel being cut to $60 following opposition from Poland and Baltic countries.

“We trust that an agreement will be reached before February 5,” one EU diplomat said. A second diplomat said, meanwhile, that the bigger EU countries were becoming “fed up with the moral blackmail” of the hawkish coalition.

The EU’s ban on Russian diesel had led to fears of a supply crunch, but significant increases in imports in recent weeks have eased those concerns for now.

Some commentators have criticized the proposed cap levels for oil products.

Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, said the caps were too high to have a significant impact.

“This really represents window dressing by EU countries,” Myllyvirta said. “The aim must be to push Russia's selling prices far below where the market would set them, close to production costs, depriving Russia of excess profits. Instead, the mentality for too many countries is to set the cap levels so high as to only act as circuit breaker against price spikes.”
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
×