Millions of barrels of oil that would normally be preserve of oil refineries in Europe are instead heading to Asia as US sanctions on Russia revive one of the market’s great arbitrage trades.

Trade for March-loading Russian oil in top buyer Asia has stalled as a wide price gap between buyers and sellers emerged in China after costs for chartering tankers unaffected by U.S. sanctions jumped,

On Tuesday evening, the European Commission adopted a proposal to impose tariffs on a range of agricultural products from Russia and Belarus, as well as certain nitrogen fertilisers. However, this does not finalise the agreement.