Oil

The oil situation in Russia is suffering from a self inflicted wound rather than from the export sanctions. The sales for export oil and oil products have merely shifted from Europe to Asia with Turkey, China and India leading the way so why did Russian shut down all exports in September of this year. It turns out that the price of oil products sold within the country of Russia can only increase at the inflation rate which was 5% in Russia. Because of that the oil industry was exporting most of its products because the price was higher but this led to a shortage within the country and internal pressure forced the government to shut down exports. This not only cuts into the income the country needs but they are still producing oil at the well head and soon will run out of storage and be forced to shut down the wells. This could lead to serious consequences if it occurs in cold weather which is just a few months away. The main oil wells are in the cold weather zone and if shut down the pipes will freeze and bust. The last time this happened was in 1990 when the Soviet Union collapsed and it took years to recover and that was using engineers from the West who had the knowledge. This time these engineers will not be available because of the war. Russia is between a rock and a hard place.