US officials have decided to wait until after the November 8th elections in the United States to set the proposed price cap on Russian oil, according to a new report on the matter in the Wall Street Journal, quoting sources with knowledge of the matter.

The administration fears that if they try to impose the price cap before the election, Russia might retaliate by cutting their supplies from the market, driving the price of oil upward, and that might cause disruptions to the midterm elections.

Moscow has said on numerous occasions that if any nation seeks to impose a price cap on its products, it would judge that nation hostile and refuse to sell any fuel products to them.

It had been expected the level of the price cap was to have been set in mid-October, to allow businesses time to adapt to the rule before December 5th, when it was expected a ban would go into effect on all entities, barring them from shipping, financing, and insuring any Russian oil products that were being sold at prices over limit.

The delay in setting the rules over the cap means some distributors may have shipments which are in transit on December 5th, when the rules go into effect, which will fall under the sanctions rules when the fuel arrives at the buyer.

Kevin Book, the managing director of ClearView Energy Partners said, “It’s roughly 40 days to December 5th, a typical voyage to the longer routes from Russia run 45 to 60 days. So we’re inside the window of a stranded cargo, there’s some risk that crude-oil prices could rise as buyers bid for alternative sources.”

The oil price cap was a compromise measure which Washington had hoped would impede Moscow’s ability to profit on the global energy market, without removing Russian energy supplies entirely from the oil market, which could have sent global oil prices skyrocketing. The Biden administration sees the price of oil as an important election issue, and fears any spike in it will negatively impact the electoral hopes of the President’s party in the midterm elections.