Despite the sanctions, India became one of the largest buyers of Russian crude oil. Now the country has clearly begun to reduce purchases.
India became the largest buyer of Russian crude oil after Russia lowered its prices due to sanctions imposed by Western countries.
Now the refineries have moved their purchases to the United States and the Persian Gulf.
India has reduced its oil purchases from Russia due to transportation problems and complicated payment transactions. The country is also thought to want to please Western countries, which have imposed sanctions on Russia in response to the war of aggression in Ukraine.
Russian exports of petroleum products fell to 4.75 million barrels per day last month compared to 5 million barrels in December, according to data from the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Indian companies have increased purchases, especially from the United States. State owned Bharat Petroleum and Indian Oil and a private processor Reliance Industries have bought about 7 million barrels of US crude oil last month, according to Kpler, a research house that follows oil transports. According to it, this is the largest monthly volume since May of last year.
Analyst at industrial consultant FGE Dylan Sim estimates for the news agency Bloomberg that Indian refineries are headed to the United States by the Russian Kestrel due to import problems.
Petroleum Minister of India Hardeep Singh Puri confirmed the matter to the Nikkei Asia publication and said that the decline in Russian oil purchases reflects the need to get energy at the cheapest price.
Russian oil ends up in Europe
However, many parties believe that it is partly a political move. In recent months, the United States and its allies have stepped up monitoring of sanctions compliance.
The sanctions against the Kremlin have particularly affected Russian freight transport. According to Indian media, Russian oil ships are waiting in the ports of South Korea and Singapore. In addition According to Bloomberg, two Russian oil tankers have been stuck off the coast of India for weeks.
In addition to transportation problems, Indian refineries have also had a headache with payment traffic, as Russia has been closed to international payment services due to the war of aggression in Ukraine.
Indian refiners were forced to stop buying Russian oil for a while last year when the country’s government advised against using the Chinese yuan for oil payments.
Although official bodies or companies have not commented on the political perspective on oil purchases, it is believed that Indian refiners want to buy more from competing producers in the Persian Gulf countries and the United States in order to maintain good relations with Western countries.
Despite the Western sanctions, Russian oil has ended up in Europe, because the EU countries have wanted oil products of Russian origin.
India’s exports of refined petroleum products to EU countries grew by more than 20 percent in the last three quarters of last year compared to the previous, year-ago period, according to the country’s Department of Commercial Statistics DGCISaccording to
THE FACTS
Barrel recycling
India has huge refining capacity.
The country’s two largest refineries Reliance Industries and Nayara Energy have increased exports to Europe last year.
Indian refiners sold the refined products to the EU market using the same Russian barrels in which the oil was imported.
In addition to India, China craves record cheap oil.
The Asian giants have not taken a stand on Russia’s military actions.