India wants to double purchases of Russian oil

India intends to double imports of Russian oil, reports Bloomberg with reference to sources.

“India intends to double its imports of Russian oil. State-owned refiners are seeking better supplies from Rosneft PJSC as international players refuse to cooperate with Moscow,” the material says.

According to the sources of the agency, the parties are requested on the terms of including the cost of delivery from Rosneft, and the seller must deal with issues of maritime transportation and insurance.

If these stand-alone supply contracts are concluded, they will be in addition to oil supplies that India already imports from Russia under other deals. While discussions are underway with Indian banks on details related to volumes and prices, which should be fully financed by all consignments. Indian refiners are looking to buy crude oil directly from Russian companies such as Rosneft more frequently as leading international traders such as Glencore Plc wind down their deals in Russia.

State-owned refineries include Indian Oil Corp, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum, while private refineries include Reliance Industries and Nayara Energy, partly owned by Rosneft. Procurement activities for public and private companies are carried out independently. Representatives of the three largest state-owned companies did not comment on this Bloomberg message.

Both public and private refineries in India are ramping up purchases of Russian oil as sanctions and trade restrictions imposed by the US, UK and EUforced most oil buyers to back out of deals. May saw unprecedented volumes of Russian oil shipped to India and China as European buyers struggled to find replacements in the UAE. The ensuing panic and re-routing of global oil flows have pushed prices up more than 20% since the end of February.

Asia’s second-largest oil importer’s refineries are making higher profits by converting cheap oil into fuels that are sold in the domestic market as well as in export markets, customers in Europe and the USA. Russian deliveries are only a fraction of India’s total crude oil basket, along with other long-term and spot purchases in the Middle East and Africa.

According to sources cited by Bloomberg, the possibility of increasing the volume of purchases of Russian oil will inevitably affect India’s imports through spot transactions. India bought more than 40 million barrels of Russian oil between late February and early May, about 20% more than in all of 2021, according to the news agency’s calculations. According to Kpler, Russian oil deliveries to India totaled 740,000 bpd in May, up from 284,000 bpd in April and just 34,000 bpd in 2021.

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