Let me remind you once again - Chinese traders give information on the Urals - for about 30 dollars, provided that the freight and other expenses are paid by the RUSSIAN side. This condition was established by the Chinese side regarding purchases of "excess oil". China has its informants in the upper echelons of the country's power, and it perfectly understands how many storage facilities Russia has, what real production is and the situation in the oil and gas sector. Therefore, it is easy to manipulate Kremlin criminals, in the area of favorable prices for China.
ESPO is slightly more expensive, but its production and sales volumes are many times lower than those of Urals.
Observing the picture of prices for petroleum products in India, more precisely for derivatives - gasoline and diesel, I am increasingly coming to the opinion that this is an ordinary manipulation of data on the Indian market, so that someone simply earns more by showing the common man an allegedly high purchase price. Thus misleading people who do not want to simply check the data, thereby making huge markups! It happens
Most of the available supply of Urals get scooped up by India and Turkey, leaving hardly anything for China. China imports around 1 million barrels per day through the ESPO pipeline (capacity at 1.6 million barrels per day). The prices are contracted w.r.t the benchmark Brent prices. Supplies that are not sold to China, are transported to other countries through the port of Kozmino. China consumes most of the minor grades, such as Sakhalin Blend, Sokol, Novy Port and Siberian Light.
According to Chinese government data, the average price of Russian crude for the month of 2023 February was $73 per barrel. India gets crude at a much cheaper rate than China, because prices are not tied to long-term contracts.
You are now not very successful trying to wishful thinking.
Let's once again, "in pictures", I'll explain to you if you can't understand
So, until 2022, when Russia staged a new terrorist attack on Ukraine, the picture really looked close to what you described.
A significant part of Urals brand oil was sold to Turkey and India, I agree. But they were not exclusive buyers. Urals was also bought by Europe and other countries. Europe also bought a significant amount of this oil. The price of supplies was regulated by the market, and was significantly higher than the cost of production... And so it was until 2022...
Sanctions against the international terrorist country were precisely aimed at reducing the economic effect from the sale of hydrocarbons, which form almost 50% of Russian income! Restrictions, embargoes and simply refusing to buy resources from terrorist countries gave results.
The EU actually completely refused supplies from Russia. And the "great Fuhrer of Russia" also introduced a ban on the sale of oil to some countries
And here we come to the conclusion that you either cannot understand or simply deny it
the oil that went to the European market - it must be put somewhere. There are several options here - either to preserve oil production, or to sell somewhere, because. Russia simply has nowhere to store such volumes of oil! Canning is, in fact, forever abandoning production, tk. Russia does not have the technology to reactivate deposits. Yes, this is a fact - Russia has never been able to develop technologies that provide 50% of budget revenues. Simply put - technologically the rest of the country
So - the only option left is to sell to OTHER buyers. Yes, India has increased the purchase, this is a fact. But India does not buy ALL the surplus oil, and Turkey does not buy either. Urals started buying China, it's easy to check, it's a fact, whether you like it or not.
But China always uses the situation for its own benefit, and the interests of Russia, for China, come last. Therefore, reality looks like I described. At the same time, China can officially say anything, perhaps acting in the same way as the Indian leadership, publicly announcing a very high price in order to continue to squeeze money out of gullible citizens.
But you must admit - it's stupid to believe in the price of $73 if it's $50 on the market and no one wants to buy