Report: G-7 Recruiting Other Nations to Honor Oil Price Controls Against Russia
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By Jay Clemons | Friday, 09 September 2022 06:44 PM EDT
The G-7 powers (the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom) are actively recruiting more nations to join in the support for price limits on Russian oil sales, according to a CNBC report.
CNBC's piece, which included conversations with U.S. and European officials, comes two months after the G-7 coalition first signaled a policy shift against Russia.
It's also been more than six months since the Russia invaded Ukraine.
"The [price controls] coalition has to be broader, and this is the diplomatic phase [negotiators] are entering into," one European official told CNBC.
A number of Western democracies have already banned imports of Russian oil. And now, many of these same countries are reportedly trying to prohibit Russia from shipping oil to other nations — short of an agreed-upon pricing freeze.
That plan may be more ambitious than feasible. For starters, primary importers of Russian oil, such as Turkey, India and China, have not agreed to any coordinated price caps.
The above countries also have the option of cutting side deals that may be immune to variable market pricing.
"It's premature to start discussing the price before the coalition comes together," a senior U.S. Treasury official told CNBC.
Also, it might be too late for some Western European countries to exert leverage against Russia, pertaining to matters of oil and natural gas.
Earlier this week on Newsmax, Neil Chatterjee, the former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, revealed his FERC colleagues from Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic alerted him to Russian President Vladimir Putin's long-term plan of controlling European nations through oil and natural gas rationing — as far back as 2019.
"We saw this years in advance," Chatterjee said while appearing on "American Agenda" with hosts Bob Sellers and Katrina Szish. "They were warning us back then, about how Putin could weaponize natural gas."
After that conversation, Chatterjee and then-Energy Secretary Rick Perry — both serving under then-President Donald Trump — tried to inform energy companies and affiliated industries about Putin's prospective plans.
But that warning largely fell on deaf ears, domestically and internationally, Chatterjee said.
"The reality is, Russia needs the [worldwide market] money. They get their money from oil," Chatterjee said, adding that Putin uses the threat of depriving Western European nations of natural gas as "political currency."
Chatterjee explained: "Putin knows he's dominating Western Europe, because [that region] is totally dependent on Russian gas. He'll make his money on oil, and exert his power via natural gas."