APPEC-Sanctions against Russia bringing BRICS closer, executives say

Western sanctions against Russia are driving the BRICS grouping of countries closer together in addition to curbing Moscow's oil revenue, some executives at a major Asia energy conference said. Sanctions imposed by the Group of Seven and other western countries in the aftermath of Russia's invasion last year of Ukraine have capped Russian energy revenues and forced a drastic re-drawing of the global energy map. "Western sanctions on Russia are working … In the sense that they're creating less or lower revenues," Russell Hardy, chief executive of Vitol, the world's largest independent oil trader, told the Asia Pacific Petroleum Conference (APPEC) in Singapore on Monday.