Russia become India’s largest oil supplier

New Delhi: India's imports of crude oil from Russia touched a new high of 1.64 million barrels per day in March and is now double of the purchases from Iraq - the nation's traditional top oil supplier. But the purchases appear to have plateaued as growth has slowed.

Russia continued to be the single largest supplier of crude oil, which is converted into petrol and diesel at refineries, for a sixth straight month by supplying more than one-third of all oil India imported, according to energy cargo tracker Vortexa. Refiners continue to snap up plentiful Russian cargo available at a discount to other grades.

From a market share of less than 1 per cent in India's import basket before the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in February 2022, Russia's share of India's imports rose to 1.64 million barrels per day in March, taking a 34 per cent share. The purchases from Russia in March were double of 0.82 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil bought from Iraq, which has been India's top oil supplier since 2017-18. India, the world's third-largest crude importer after China and the United States, has been snapping 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. Month-on-month, purchases from Russia rose marginally from 1.62 million bpd of oil imported from the country in February.

According to Vortexa, Saudi Arabia was India's second largest supplier of crude oil in March, selling 986,288 bpd.