(Reuters) – U.S. officials are being forced to scale back a plan to impose a cap on Russian oil prices, as investors have grown skeptical and risks have grown in financial markets, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday.
The United States and other G7 countries are developing a price cap on Russian seaborne oil deliveries to cut Russia’s oil revenues, while encouraging Moscow to continue to produce oil.
The United States and the European Union are likely to settle for a more loosely policed cap at a higher price than once envisioned, with just the Group of Seven (G7) nations and Australia committed to abide by it, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.
South Korea has also privately told G7 nations it plans to comply, while G7 officials are seeking to bring New Zealand and Norway on board as well, the report added.
Officials involved in the plans are discussing a cap at the higher end of the range of $40 to $60 per barrel and above, which was spearheaded internally and externally by U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in an earlier iteration of the U.S. plan, according to the outlet.
“The White House and the administration are staying the course on implementing an effective, strong price cap on Russian oil in coordination with the G7 and other partners,” a spokeswoman for the White House’s National Security Council, Adrienne Watson, said in a statement to Bloomberg.
Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said this month that the United States was starting to see success with discussions of a Russian oil price cap by the G7.
(Reporting by Juby Babu in Bengaluru; Editing by David Gregorio)
