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Crude Oil War Escalates: US to Sanction OPEC, India? Prices Plunge 5%

The United States, in conjunction with other Western countries, has been continuously launching rounds of sanctions, directly targeting the crude oil market.

Recently, the U.S. is also planning to further escalate price caps, and is not ruling out sanctions against India and OPEC, which could further amplify fluctuations in the international crude oil market.

However, what the U.S. truly cares about is not the oil price, but the U.S. dollar.

It now appears that the U.S. is very dissatisfied with the current effects of the price cap.

This month, there has been news from the U.S. Treasury Department that the G7 group intends to adjust the price cap policy again in the near future, but the U.S. and the G7 alliance have not provided any further clarification, which is somewhat puzzling.

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At the same time, the U.S. has claimed that the current price of Russian crude oil is still operating within their control under the policy restrictions of the G7 alliance.

In 2022, the G7 alliance, led by the U.S., set a price cap of $60 per barrel for Russian oil.

According to the price cap policy, many countries in Europe and America cannot cooperate with Russia on oil transactions that exceed the cap.

To this day, the G7 alliance has begun to adjust the price cap measures step by step to better control the import and export of Russian oil.

In fact, last month, the price cap was upgraded once, extending from crude oil to many Russian oil products, with diesel and gasoline and other energy sources being capped at $100 per barrel, and other oil products were also subject to price cap sanctions.

In response to the G7's price cap policy on Russia, a Russian spokesperson publicly countered that the G7 hopes to break the Russian oil market through price caps, but the policy is like a punch on cotton.

Russia's confidence comes from the global demand for crude oil.

Even if Europe no longer imports crude oil and related products from Russia, Russia can easily turn to Asia and find alternatives.

Since last year, India has been continuously increasing its efforts to purchase crude oil from Russia.

Until recently, India still claimed that its country has not participated in the price cap and therefore should not be subject to its constraints.

Since crude oil exceeding $60 cannot use transportation and insurance services provided by the West for export, Russia has now simply replaced them, taking over the transportation of crude oil exports to India with Russian fleets and providing corresponding maritime insurance through Russian companies.

Through this method, Russia not only ensures its income from crude oil exports but also gains income from other services such as transportation and insurance.

What annoys the U.S. the most is that due to India and Russia's oil trade no longer using the U.S. dollar for settlement, the petrodollar system that has been in operation for decades is at risk of collapse.

Affected by this, even other OPEC countries have now begun to use non-U.S. dollar currencies in oil trade with other countries, with the Chinese yuan being a common option.

As a result, U.S. media is warning officials and suggesting sanctions against India and OPEC.

In fact, this U.S. media inadvertently revealed the truth that the U.S. is not dissatisfied with the effects of the price cap, but with the impact on the status of the U.S. dollar.

For a long time, the U.S. dollar has been continuously consolidating its position as the global payment currency due to its tie with oil, but now this status is being continuously weakened, which the U.S. finds hard to bear.

Therefore, this oil war can also be understood as a war to decouple the U.S. dollar from oil.

Affected by such news, and coupled with a series of risks in the U.S. financial sector recently, international crude oil prices experienced a significant drop yesterday.

Yesterday, the WTI crude oil price reached a high of $74.9 and fell to a low of $70.78, with a decline of more than 5%.

In fact, this has been a continuous decline for several days, and if calculated from the highest price of $80.9 last Tuesday, to the lowest yesterday, the crude oil price has fallen by more than $10 per barrel in a week.

Now it seems that the "oil war" may not have a result in the short term.

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