Russia is now China’s top supplier of the fuel, supplanting Indonesia after the Southeast Asian nation deterred buyers by raising prices.

Brent fell $1.60, or 1.6%, to $95.12 a barrel, WTI were down $1.56, or 1.7%, at $89.21 a barrel.

Benchmark futures rose as much as 16%, also driving up electricity prices to fresh records. The key Nord Stream pipeline will stop for three days of maintenance on Aug. 31, again raising concerns that the link won’t return to service as planned after the works.

Brent fell 36 cents, or 0.4%, to $96.23 a barrel, WTI was at $90.29 a barrel, down 21 cents.

Europe is engulfed in an energy crisis fanned by limited supplies from Russia, as well as increased demand amid recovery from the pandemic and a hot and dry summer that has increased the need for cooling.

European countries imported on average approximately 400 million cubic meters of gas per day from Russia during the January to July period last year, but imports dropped to 240 million cubic meters per day for the January-July period this year.

Russia's crude exports rose by 140,000 b/d on the month to average 3.36 million b/d from Aug 1-16 to remain above pre-war levels for the fifth month in a row,

According to preliminary data, Gazprom produced 274.8 billion cubic meters of gas from January 1 through August 15, 2022. This is a decrease of 13.2 per cent (or 41.7 billion cubic meters) versus the same period of last year.

Since 2011, SCC has been implementing the Proryv project to demonstrate closed fuel cycle technology.

Brent fell 84 cents, or 0.9%, to $94.26 a barrel, WTI dipped 45 cents, or 0.5%, to $88.96 a barrel.