The US Treasury Department announced the steps Wednesday, including sanctions on Bellatrix Energy Ltd., a Hong Kong-based firm among the shadowy traders that emerged to help Russia keep its oil exports flowing.

Russia is eyeing the Northern Sea Route across the Arctic Ocean to supply the cargoes to the east, to cut the time and cost of bringing its fuel to market.

Russia’s Novatek PJSC, which leads the Arctic LNG 2 project, sent force majeure notices to some of the facility’s buyers,

“The concept assumes that we do not sell power units as something separate. We sell the electricity that is generated using the floating units. For the customer, this means that it does not matter where and how the unit is built. The customer does not take part in its construction. The construction, fuel loading and subsequent operation of the station is provided by Rosatom,” Nikipelov said.

Brent fell 22 cents, or 0.3%, to $79.48 a barrel. WTI was at $74 a barrel, also down 22 cents or 0.3%.

Brent rose 40 cents to $77.01 a barrel, WTI climbed 40 cents to $71.98.

The nation’s plants processed 5.33 million barrels of crude a day in the first six days of the month, down about 81,000 barrels a day from the prior week’s average, according to a person with knowledge of industry data.

Brent climbed 1 cents to $77.21 a barrel, WTI were down 4 cents at $72.28 a barrel.

These additional voluntary cuts are announced by the following OPEC+ countries : Saudi Arabia (1,000 thousand b/d); Iraq (223 thousand b/d); United Arab Emirates (163 thousand b/d); Kuwait (135 thousand b/d); Kazakhstan (82 thousand b/d); Algeria (51 thousand b/d); and Oman (42 thousand b/d) starting 1st of January until the end of March 2024.

Brent fell 15 cents, or 0.2%, to $82.95 a barrel, WTI rose 12 cents, or 0.2%, at $77.98 a barrel.