Vladimir Putin enjoys a huge windfall from the Iran war

BETWEEN FEBRUARY 22nd and 26th the Sarah, a 20-year-old tanker flagged in Hong Kong, temporarily turned off its transponders to pick up three loads of Russian oil from smaller ships off the Omani coast. It then headed towards Singapore, where it had probably planned to pass on the cargo to another “shadow” ship, bound for China. But on March 6th, the day after America issued a 30-day sanctions waiver allowing Indian refiners to buy Russian crude, the Sarah abruptly changed course. It is now due to arrive at a refinery in western India on March 14th.

The ship’s U-turn is a metaphor for the dramatic reversal in the fortunes of Russia’s energy industry since the start of the Iran war. The de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz has trapped around 15% of the world’s oil in the Gulf. In December Brent crude, the global oil-price benchmark, touched a five-year low of $59 a barrel, and the industry predicted a “superglut”; now it hovers around $100. That has made Russian barrels harder to shun. On March 12th the Trump administration extended its waiver to enable all countries to buy Russian oil already loaded on tankers.