- Thursday, March 06, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
India’s minister of petroleum and natural gas Hardeep Singh Puri has said that while the West, including the European Union (EU) and the G7 nations have decided to cap the price of Russian seaborne crude oil at $60 a barrel as of Monday (5), the move was unlikely to hurt India since its exposure to Russian crude is minimal.
Speaking to BQ Prime, Puri said Russia is not India’s top supplier, a tag that goes to Middle Eastern nations such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
In FY22, India imported 53 per cent of its oil from these countries while between April and September in FY23, 52 per cent of India’s crude oil imports came from these countries, the minister said.
Puri added that if Moscow refuses to sell crude at the capped price or slashes down production, it will hit the global supply chain. It will also put pressure on the producing nations to meet the demand for energy, leading to a spike in the prices of crude.
“We have a situation where two major producers—Iran and Russia—are under some form of sanctions and one major consumer, China, is under lockdown,” Puri was quoted as saying. He added, ”The producers, OPEC+, have decided to cut supplies in their last meeting, so the markets are in a state of flux.”
OPEC+, a group of 23 oil-producing countries, including Saudi Arabia and Russia, on Sunday (4) decided to roll over the existing October policy of oil output decision.
On Monday, India’s external affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar asserted that New Delhi’s procurement was just one-sixth of the European purchase in last nine months, in comments that came as a G7 price cap on Russian crude at $60 a barrel came into effect.
At a media briefing in New Delhi after holding wide-ranging talks with visiting German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, Jaishankar said Europe can’t make choices to prioritise its energy needs while asking New Delhi to do something else, asserting that discussions between India and Russia to expand the trade basket started much before beginning of the Ukraine conflict.
To a question on India’s import of crude oil from Russia, Jaishankar strongly justified it and said New Delhi and Moscow have been engaged in talks to expand trade relations much before February 24 when the Ukraine conflict began.
“I understand that there is a conflict situation (in Ukraine). I also understand that Europe has a point of view and Europe will make the choices it will make that is Europe’s right. But for Europe to make choices which prioritises its energy needs and then ask India to do something else..,” he said.
Jaishankar said Europe’s purchase of crude oil from the Middle-East is also putting pressure on prices. “And bear in mind, today, Europe is buying a lot (of crude oil) from the Middle-East. The Middle-East was traditionally a supplier for an economy like India. So it puts pressure on prices in the Middle-East as well. We have been very very understanding of the European choices and European policies,” Jaishankar said.
[With PTI inputs]
