MOSCOW: Germany's Russian crude imports have almost completely ground to a halt due to EU sanctions, according to the country's statistics service, Destatis, on Monday.

Russian crude deliveries plunged 99.9% to just 3,500 tonnes in January, compared with 2.8 million tonnes imported during the same period last year, according to the data.

However, the Destatis report only includes direct purchases of Russian oil and disregards Russian-origin crude obtained through ship-to-ship transfers from international traders.

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In February, the Berlin Economy Ministry acknowledged that some blending of Kazakh and Russian crude was inevitable due to the Druzhba pipeline's transit through Russian territory to Germany.

In Germany's overall fuel imports, the proportion of Russian crude fell from 36.5% in the same period in 2022 to 0.1% in January this year.

The figures are a stark contrast to December's figure, when Germany increased purchases of the commodity from November and imported about 1.3 million metric tons of crude from Russia.

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"Imports of crude oil from Russia have virtually stopped," Destatis said. The European Union imposed a price cap on Russian oil and banned its seaborne exports in December.

According to Destatis, Germany increased purchases from Norway (up 44%), the UK (up 42%), and Kazakhstan (up 34.6%) to make up for lost Russian supplies.

Additionally increasing its shipments to German refineries that previously mainly processed Russian oil in the US and UAE.

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Germany paid an average of €686 ($733) per tonne of imported oil last year, setting a new absolute price record since data collection on international trade began in 1950.