New Delhi: With the ongoing West Asia conflict choking trade via the Hormuz Strait that is a key conduit for India’s petroleum product imports, the government estimates that its stocks are at a “reasonably comfortable” level and adequate to weather “short-term disruptions” from the fighting.Union petroleum and natural gas minister Hardeep Singh Puri in a media interaction on Tuesday (March 3) also said that Indian energy firms “now have access to energy supplies that are not routed through the Strait of Hormuz” and which would “help mitigate supplies that may be temporarily affected” by the conflict, although he did not elaborate on the source of these cargoes.The disruption along the strait owing to the conflict between Iran on the one hand and the US and Israel on the other comes against the backdrop of India’s relative intake of West Asian crude going up after its refiners cut down purchases of Russian oil amid pressure from the Trump administration.India is eyeing alternate sources of crude oil, LNG and LPG in the event that the conflict lasts for more than ten days or a fortnight, Reuters has cited a government official as saying. Bloomberg reported that officials from Puri’s ministry are lobbying their counterparts in external affairs to “seek some room for manoeuvre from Washington”, whose 25% tariff to ‘penalise’ India’s Russian oil purchases ended last month after it claimed that New Delhi agreed to halt them.Speaking to reporters on the fourth day of the conflict in West Asia, Puri said that India is “well-stocked with crude oil and inventories of key petroleum products including petrol, diesel and ATF [jet fuel] to deal with short-term disruptions arising from the Middle East”.Noting India’s status as the world’s third-largest importer, fourth-largest refiner and fifth-largest exporter of petroleum products, the minister added that Indian energy companies “now have access to energy supplies that are not routed through the Strait of Hormuz” and which could compensate for supply disruptions in West Asia.“At present, the government is reasonably comfortable in terms of stocks … Based on continuous monitoring, the government is cautiously optimistic that phased measures can be taken, if required, to further mitigate the situation,” Puri said.Iran, which was attacked by the US and Israel over the weekend, has responded among other ways by declaring the Hormuz Strait closed. By one estimate the waterbody accounts for 34% of seaborne oil exports and, according to an Indian official cited by Reuters on Tuesday, some 40% of India’s crude inflows.This official also told the news agency’s Nidhi Verma that India’s crude inventories can meet about 25 days’ demand, with the situation being similar for its gasoil, gasoline and LPG stocks too. However, its LNG supplies will only last it a few days in light of top exporter Qatar deciding to halt production. India is rationing its LNG in response, Verma reported.As of last month West Asia accounted for around 55% for India’s crude imports, marking its highest share since late 2022, per Reuters. Earlier that year India began purchasing Russian oil – rendered cheaper due to Western measures against Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine – in unprecedented quantities and went on to become the biggest buyer of the seaborne variety of the commodity.That was until the US put pressure on India to stop buying Russian oil. When he announced an end to his 25% ‘penalty’ tariff in response to India’s purchases last month, Trump had said that his government could consider re-imposing the levy were New Delhi to “directly or indirectly” resume intake. Meanwhile, the Modi government has not publicly confirmed the president’s assertion that it had agreed to halt crude imports from Russia.Against this background Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that oil ministry officials are “pushing for the Ministry of External Affairs to seek some room for manoeuvre from Washington”.Sumit Ritolia, an analyst with the Kpler ship-tracking firm, told PTI that Russian oil cargoes that are “currently floating in the Arabian Sea and wider Asian region without firm buyers could also be absorbed relatively quickly if required”.However the risk in the short term is ‘primarily price volatility and higher import costs rather than immediate physical shortage’, PTI cited Ritolia as saying. Oil prices have spiked since the US-Israeli attacks.Meanwhile, the Indian government has also set up an ‘inter-ministerial group for supply chain resilience’, which will comprise officials from the financial services department, the petroleum, external affairs and shipping ministries and the Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs in light of the conflict, Union commerce minister Piyush Goyal said on Tuesday.