Russia accounted for 22 percent of India’s total crude oil imports in October, the report said. It is followed by Iraq with 20.5 percent and Saudi Arabia with 16 percent. The announcement of subsidized oil sales to India has further boosted Russian oil supplies. After the attack on Ukraine, Western countries imposed all kinds of sanctions on Russia, including a ban on oil trade, after which Russia started supplying cheap oil to India. India is also taking full advantage of this.
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Status one year ago
India bought only 36,255 barrels of crude oil per day from Russia in December 2021, according to a Vortexa report. While the purchase from Iraq was 1 million barrels and from Saudi Arabia 952,625 barrels. In the following two months, there was no oil purchase from Russia, but in March it started buying Russian oil again. The war between Russia and Ukraine started in February. After that India and Russia came closer to each other and the benefit was seen in oil trade.
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Saudi ranks third
India imported 68,600 bpd of Russian oil in March, while it rose to 266,617 bpd in the following month. Also, the volume of imports reached 942,694 bpd in June but Iraq became the largest supplier of oil to India with 10.4 million bpd in June. In the same month, Russia became India’s second largest supplier. Imports declined marginally in the next two months. Imports were 876,396 bpd in September, up from 835,556 bpd in October, Vortexa reported. In addition, Iraq fell to second place in October with 888,079 bpd of supply, followed by Saudi Arabia at 746,947 bpd.
What is the role of the Government of India?
India defended its decision to buy oil from Russia despite criticism from around the world. India said it will buy cheap oil wherever it is available. Western countries including the US raised questions on India’s decision, but defying the pressure, India has continuously increased its oil purchases from Russia. Last week, Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri told CNN in Abu Dhabi that Russian oil purchases accounted for 0.2 percent (of all oil imported by India) in fiscal year 2012 (April 2021 to March 2022). We still buy a quarter of what Europe buys at noon. We have a moral duty to our customers. We have a population of 1.34 billion and we want to ensure that they are supplied with energy, be it petrol or diesel.
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