JakartaPost-Aug 11, 2022
The Group of Seven has called on Indonesia to join its supplemental alliance, the G7+, and impose a price cap on Russian oil to bring the commodity down to pre-war prices, a United States official told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday. Some Indonesian executives were also scheduled to hold meetings this week with US Treasury Department assistant Elizabeth Rosenberg to discuss the topic, the official said. In late June, the United Kingdom announced that the G7 was “exploring further measures to prevent Russia from profiting from its war of aggression”, including the prohibition of all services that enabled the global transportation of oil products “unless the oil is purchased at or below a price to be agreed in consultation with international partners”. The US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that while the G7 nations had already placed sanctions on Russian oil products, they were now seeking support in these measures from countries outside the group, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia and Japan. The US has described the plan as “a novel idea” intended to “take the money away from Russia and give it to developing countries”. “There are two kinds of countries that are in the G7+: countries that are exporting oil from Russia [and] those that do not export but provide financial and insurance services on oil transportation,” the US official said. State-owned oil company Pertamina and the country as a whole stood to benefit from the scheme, the official added, because Jakarta had been paying “a lot of money in [oil] subsidies”. “[Indonesia would get to purchase] Russian oil at a lower market price, so this would be beneficial for them,” said the official. The G7 policy is set to come into effect on Dec. 5. Read more at:
https://www.thejakartapost.com/paper/2022/08/10/g7-calls-on-ri-to-cap-russian-oil-prices.html.
