Russia has launched commercial crude exports from Rosneft’s Vostok Oil project after years of delays linked to sanctions, investor withdrawals, and construction setbacks. The first shipments have departed from the new Arctic terminal at Bukhta Sever on the Taimyr Peninsula.
In September, three ice-class tankers loaded about 250,000 metric tons of crude at the terminal. Two carried the oil to Murmansk for ship-to-ship transfers, while a third headed to Asia via the Northern Sea Route. A fourth tanker is waiting to load.
Industry sources expect exports to average about 150,000 barrels per day this year. That is only 7.5% of the 2 million bpd once projected for Vostok.
Most of the initial supply is coming from Rosneft’s mature Vankor fields. The company says development of northern fields, including Payakha, could raise exports to around 600,000 bpd in the second half of 2027 and to 1 million bpd by 2030.
Vostok includes 13 fields with estimated reserves of 50 billion barrels of low-sulfur crude. A dedicated 790-kilometer pipeline links the development to Bukhta Sever, where Rosneft plans to build a 100-tank storage hub.
Trafigura and Vitol exited the project after Western sanctions were imposed on Russia in 2022. Rosneft then had to replace that funding with domestic financing and asset sales, pushing commercial exports several years behind schedule.
The new barrels are reaching the market as one of Russia’s biggest buyers is already scaling back purchases. India cut Russian crude imports by 16.5% in August to about 2.1 million bpd, while preliminary Kpler data for September shows 1.9 million bpd. A new U.S. sanctions law also allows tariffs of up to 100% on goods from major buyers of Russian oil and gas.
Russia produced about 9.9 million bpd of oil and condensate in 2025, compared with nearly 13.6 million bpd in the United States.
Bukhta Sever also gives Russia a new Arctic export route. One of the first commercial cargoes is already sailing east through the Northern Sea Route, avoiding Russia’s Baltic and Black Sea oil infrastructure, which has been hit by Ukrainian drone attacks.
