Five Russian crude grades and where they load
Urals, Siberian Light, ESPO Blend, Sokol and Sakhalin Blend differ in weight, sulphur and coast. Here is what we know about each, and where our starting prices come from.
Our catalog starts with five Russian export grades. They come from different fields and leave from different coasts, and they are not interchangeable: a refinery buys a crude for what it yields, and that depends mostly on how light it is (its API gravity) and how much sulphur it carries.
Urals
- API 30.9, sulphur 1.76 %: a medium, sour crude. These are averages of EU import statistics (Eurostat).
- Loads at Primorsk and Ust-Luga on the Baltic and Novorossiysk on the Black Sea.
- Starting price $92.08 a barrel: the official September 2026 average published by Russia's Ministry of Economic Development.
Siberian Light
- About API 37, sulphur 0.4 %: light and sweet. These are rounded figures from a grade sheet; Energy Intelligence gives 35–38 API.
- Loads at Novorossiysk and Tuapse on the Black Sea.
- No public price, so it starts at the Urals average, which travels the same way.
ESPO Blend
- API 34–35, sulphur 0.56–0.66 %, from the assessment specification of Quantum Commodity Intelligence.
- Loads at Kozmino, near Nakhodka, at the end of the East Siberia–Pacific Ocean pipeline.
- Starting price $104 a barrel, the September 2026 average reported by Kommersant.
Sokol
- API 37.9, sulphur 0.23 % at launch (Energy Intelligence). A later cargo was reported at 35.1 API and 0.28 % sulphur, so treat the figures as a range.
- Loads at De-Kastri, the Sakhalin-1 terminal on the mainland coast of the Tatar Strait.
- No public price, so it starts at the ESPO average, the closest Pacific benchmark.
Sakhalin Blend
- About API 34.4, sulphur 0.22 %: Platts' figures for Vityaz, the crude it replaced in 2015. Sakhalin Blend adds condensate, so it may be lighter still.
- Loads at Prigorodnoye, near Korsakov in the south of Sakhalin.
- No public price, so it also starts at the ESPO average.
Why the numbers matter for a quote
Lighter crude has more barrels to the tonne: 7.23 for Urals, 7.54 for Sokol. A tanker that lifts 100,000 tonnes of Urals carries about 723,000 barrels; filled with Sokol, about 754,000. Our calculator converts every cargo with its own grade's density, so the ship size, the freight and the price per barrel all follow.
The coast matters as much. A Baltic cargo of Urals reaches Rotterdam in about 11 days without a canal, a Black Sea cargo pays for the Turkish Straits, and Pacific grades are a few days' sailing from Chinese, Korean and Japanese ports.
The prices above are where our catalog starts. Our desk sets the selling price for each grade; the catalog always shows the current one, and the statistics page lists market benchmarks such as Brent next to it.