On Jan. 10, the U.S. Treasury announced fresh measures to deplete Russia's energy revenues, including on 183 vessels, largely oil tankers.

Oil prices fell back slightly on Thursday, a day after settling at multi-month highs on U.S. President Joe Biden's latest sanctions targeting Russia and a larger than forecast fall in U.S. crude stocks.

A fresh wave of U.S. sanctions against Russia’s oil industry threatened to disrupt global supplies, sending crude prices to their highest in more than four months.

Russian seaborne oil exports may decrease in the coming weeks after the United States imposed sanctions on two of Russia’s largest exporters and about 160 tankers in the shadow fleet, Bloomberg reports.

Russia's Foreign Ministry on Saturday denounced new U.S. sanctions against Moscow's energy sector as an attempt to harm Russia's economy at the risk of destabilising global markets and said the country would press on with large oil and gas projects.