RIYADH: Brent crude slipped below $85 for the first time since January on fears of lower fuel demand from an expected global recession sparked by rising worldwide interest rates and as a surging US dollar limits the ability of non-dollar consumers to purchase crude. Brent crude is priced at $84.85 a barrel at 09.30 a.m Saudi time, while the US West Texas Intermediate Crude fell to $77.61. Ecopetrol selling more Colombian oil to Europe Colombian state energy company Ecopetrol is selling more of its oil production to Europe, replacing Russian supplies, while it sees growing competition for market share in Asia. About 40-50 percent of Ecopetrol’s crude production is exported to Asia this year compared with 60 percent last year, Ecopetrol’s CEO Felipe Bayon told Reuters on the sidelines of the 38th Annual Asia Pacific Petroleum Conference in Singapore. Bayon said there is growing competition with Russian, Mexican, Canadian Heavy and Venezuelan crude in Asia. Vitol expects Russian oil to flow to Asia and Mideast Russian oil is expected to come to Asia and the Middle East, while refined fuel produced in these regions will flow to the West as the global oil trade is disrupted by sanctions, Vitol’s CEO Russell Hardy said on Monday. The Russia-Ukraine war has made energy security the top issue for governments as they grapple with inflation. With bans on Russian oil looming and Moscow slashing gas supplies to Europe, policymakers are setting aside sustainability concerns for now. “Energy security is number one. Price is number two. Sustainability is number three,” Hardy said of key priorities in the short term. More than a million barrels per day of US crude is expected to go to Europe to fill the gap in Russian supplies, he told a forum at the APPEC conference, adding that Russian commodities would need to find a home in places outside the UK, US and EU. “It’s going to go further and longer distances and find different markets, and in doing that it’s going to have to trade at a discount,” Hardy said. “You’re beginning to see that with fuel coming East that would otherwise have stayed in Europe, and fuel in the East going to the West to cover the shortfall.” (With input from Reuters)