Prospects of UAE buying Russian oil raised

Russia urgently needs to find new customers for its crude because, starting Dec 5, almost all seaborne deliveries into Europe will be banned.

LONDON: An oil tanker hauling a cargo of Russian crude is sitting off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, raising the prospect that the gulf state might become a customer of Moscow.

Having moored at a jetty serving the country’s biggest refinery three days ago, the Tahiti, a Suezmax-class ship able to transport one million barrels of oil, has been anchored a short distance from a terminal at the UAE port of Ruwais. It left Murmansk, a port in Russia’s part of the Arctic Sea, in early October.