Yeah, but I remember reading articles going years back about the oil industry playing games with documentation -- there was enormous amounts of stolen oil, tankers and tankers, that would enter the system one way or another.

Here's a Planet Money episode from a series 10 years back talking about a reporter looking into people selling tankers full of stolen oil. People mixing oil offshore between tanker ships, stuff like that.

I don't know to what degree the system has changed in the intervening time, but I'd give reasonable odds that it still has a lot of holes in terms of control of oil's movement, that there are sketchy entities in various countries that will still "launder" oil.

It might make it more costly to move said oil -- and at a point, that might be enough. But I'm skeptical that the oil is going to become unmoveable.

[–] MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 26 points 2 days ago

That is what Russia is doing, however the West is sanctioning entities involved in this all the time. That increases risk and means extra work. So Russia can not make as much money selling oil like this and if customers have a choice, it is easier to deal with legal oil. So if oil prices fall, then Russia is going to sell less oil.

That is somewhat true for all sanctions. Russia is going to find ways around them, but even then it hurts Russia.