New Delhi: The amount of cheap oil India is importing from Russia continues to increase. According to PTI, this quantity reached a record high in the month of May, and imported oil from Russia is now more than the combined oil bought from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the UAE and the US.India took 1.96 million barrels a day from Russia in May, 15% more than the previous high in April, energy cargo tracker Vortexa has said. Russia now accounts for 42% of all the crude oil India imports.The rise in Russia’s share, the PTI report states, comes with a corresponding decrease in the share of other Middle Eastern countries’ oil exports to India. “Shipments from Saudi Arabia slipped to 560,000 tonnes – the lowest since February 2021,” the report said, adding, “Oil producers cartel OPEC’s share in India’s oil imports fell to an all-time low of 39 per cent in May.”As has been reported, most of the Russian crude imports are going to private-sector refiners such as Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries and Russian state-run oil giant Rosneft-backed Nayara Energy. These refineries accounted for almost 46% of the total Indian crude imports from Russia in April.The discounted Russian oil has helped India meet the growing demand for petroleum products, with 222.30 million tonnes of petroleum products consumed in FY23, 10.2% higher than the year before. However, the government has not passed the benefits of cheap crude prices to the consumer as pump prices have remained unchanged since April 2022.In an article for The Wire, Trinamool Congress MP Jawhar Sircar asked why the benefits of cheaper oil were not making it down to Indian consumers. He wrote:“My point is sharp – while private refiners gained the most from the deeply-discounted imports of Russian crude, the public sector imported mainly at war-affected high international prices. How much did Reliance and Nayara profiteer from this imbroglio by importing low and exporting high? Who owns this mysterious private entity (Gatik or Buena Vista) that made sky-high amounts by transporting sanctions-tainted Russian oil? Under the circumstances, may I assume that the Indian rhetoric on Russia and our consequential international isolation are/were influenced quite deeply by the interests of private oil refineries? I am open to convincing numbers and evidence to expurgate the uneasy feeling that both the petroleum and the external affairs ministries are there mainly to fight for Gujarat-based profiteers to the extent of bringing India’s position under an international shadow.”
