The spot price of Urals crude today joined the $100 p/bbl club with a trade at $100.15 p/bbl in the afternoon session. What that means is, based on that record spot price, the total value of Russia's oil exports are

Amidst the international criticism, yesterday's election of Dmitri Medvedev was as entirely unexciting as the Kremlin must have hoped. Although Putin chose not to play by Western rules, and despite all the obvious issues, it is at least worth nothing