Oil imports from Russia climb to a new high of 16 liters barrels/day

NEW DELHI: India’s crude oil imports from Russia rose to a record 16 lakh barrels per day in February and is now higher than imports from Iraq and Saudi Arabia combined. Russia continued to be the top supplier of crude oil, which is converted into gasoline and diesel at refineries, for the fifth consecutive month, supplying more than a third of all oil imported by India, according to the energy cargo tracker Vortex.

Refiners continue to grab plentiful Russian cargoes available at a discount to other grades. From a market share of less than 1% in India’s import basket before the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in February 2022, Russia’s share of India’s imports has risen to 1.6 lakh bpd in February (see graph), reaching a share of 35%. .
India, the world’s third-largest crude importer after China and the United States, has been awarded Russian oil that was available at a discount after some in the West shunned it as a means of punishing Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine . The increase in Russian imports has come at the expense of Saudi Arabia and the United States. Oil imports from Saudi Arabia fell 16% month-on-month and those from the United States by 38%.
Russia now accounts for more than the combined oil purchased from Iraq and Saudi Arabia, India’s main oil suppliers for decades.