Sweeping U.S. sanctions on Russia's oil industry will make it more expensive for Moscow to sell its oil and complicate sea-borne crude exports due to restrictions on tankers, analysts and traders said on Monday.

Three tankers carrying more than 2 million barrels of Russian oil are floating in the waters off the coast of east China and cannot be unloaded after the United States imposed new sanctions on Russia's largest oil companies on Friday,

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.

Washington is also moving to severely limit who can legally purchase Russian energy, and going after what it called Moscow's "shadow fleet" of vessels that ship oil around the wor

The US and Britain on Friday announced sanctions against Russia's energy sector just days before outgoing President Joe Biden leaves office.