Fuel, Food, and War: Energy and Grain are Part and Parcel

Abstract

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought a stream of reports about the country's energy exports. Here are the basic facts. Russia ranks second in the extraction of both crude oil (behind the United States and ahead of Saudi Arabia) and natural gas (behind the United States and ahead of Iran), and it is the sixth-largest producer of coal (behind Australia and ahead of South Africa). Before the war, Russia exported about 55 percent of its fossil-fuel output, mostly to the European Union. The EU bought about 85 percent of the natural gas that Russia shipped out (via pipelines from Western Siberia) and nearly 55 percent of the crude oil and refined oil products that Russia exported (via pipelines and tankers).