CREA

The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) is a Finnish independent research organisation founded in Helsinki that produces widely cited analysis on fossil fuel trade flows, revenues, and emissions. Its methodology combines satellite imagery, port tracking, ship-identification data, and customs filings to generate near-real-time assessments of energy export volumes and revenues. CREA's work spans global clean energy transition analysis but has become most consequential as the primary independent monitor of Russian fossil-fuel revenues since Russia's full invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In the Russia-Ukraine war context, CREA publishes monthly Russian fossil-fuel export reviews that serve as the load-bearing data source for Western policy debates. Its May 2026 report showed Urals crude averaged $82.02 per barrel, down 12% from $112.30 in April, with Tuapse refinery exports running 91% below May 2025 and China cutting Russian crude imports by 23% month-on-month; total fossil-fuel revenues rose 2% as recovered Ust-Luga loadings partially compensated. Earlier, CREA's methodology underpinned the March 2026 export-collapse story: Ukrainian drone strikes on Ust-Luga and Primorsk cut weekly Russian seaborne crude exports from 4.07 million bpd to 2.32 million bpd, the steepest weekly decline in modern Russian export history. CREA's June 2026 report showed Urals crude falling further to $63.18 per barrel, down 26% month-on-month and compounding May's fall; seaborne oil-product loadings dropped 21% to a record low even as oil-product revenue rose 14%, the highest since June 2024, as tight global supply cushioned Russia's fiscal position. China took 41% of top-five buyer purchases while India's imports rose 34% month-on-month to a record, underscoring the report's continuing role as the reference dataset for how Western sanctions pressure and Asian demand interact.

In the European energy markets context, CREA's analytical framework informs the EU LNG and shadow-fleet debates. CREA argues the EU's 25 April 2026 short-term contract ban on Russian LNG is more enforceable than the March transshipment ban because it actually blocks cargoes at the EU border rather than rerouting them. Its shadow-fleet vessel tracking has directly informed successive EU sanctions packages, including the 20th package which designated 46 additional vessels and seven Russian refineries. CREA occupies the same independent-quantitative niche in European energy policy as SIPRI does in defence economics: its figures are cited by governments, journalists, and civil society without significant methodological challenge.