India's Oil Refiners Likely To Diversify Via Gulf Route - Key Details

The oil refiners in India are looking to elevate their crude oil imports from Gulf countries like UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq given the tariff pressure induced on crude imports from Russia by the US.

Currently, efforts are being made to diversify India's oil buying purchases with increase in imports from West Asia under consideration, as per media reports.

India, the world's third largest oil consuming countRy, has purchased Rs 5,81,189 crore from Kremlin in the third year of the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia.

The purchase of Russian crude oil from India rose significantly after Moscow offered deep discounts, causing a 36 per cent rise in share of overall crude imports.

Russia's total global fossil fuel earnings in the third year of the invasion reached €242 billion and have totalled €847 billion since the invasion of Ukraine.

This increased India's imports of Russian crude oil from below 1 per cent of its total crude oil imports to a whooping 40 per cent.

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However in the pre-February 2022 period, Russian oil only tallied upto 2.5 percent share of India's total imports 

In the last few weeks, US President Donald Trump has mounted pressure on India with a total of 50 percent tariff, which includes a penalty for buying Russian oil.

The bilateral ties between India and the US have suffered after imposed another 25 per cent tariff over the first tranche, whlie blaming India for fueling Rusian war machine in Ukraine.