New Delhi: US sanctions waivers have not impacted India’s buying of Russian oil, the petroleum ministry has said.
According to a senior ministry official, India continued buying Russian oil before, during and after US Sanctions Waivers. This statement came even as refiners and traders indicated that supplies remain available despite the expiry of the latest American waiver.
India’s crude purchases from Russia have not depended on the US waiver framework and are driven by commercial considerations, Sujata Sharma, joint secretary in the ministry of petroleum, said on Monday.
“Regarding (the) American waiver on Russia, I would like to emphasize that we have been purchasing from ?Russia earlier … ?I mean before waiver also, during ?waiver also, and now also,” Sharma said during a media briefing.
“It is basically the commercial sense which should be there for us to ?purchase … There is no shortage of crude. Enough crude has ?been tied up repeatedly … and this, whatever waiver or no waiver, it will not affect,” she said.
The statement comes after the US allowed a waiver covering some Russian crude purchases to expire over the weekend. The waiver had permitted transactions involving Russian oil cargoes already loaded on tankers.
The US first issued a waiver in March and later expanded it through an authorization valid until May 16 to help ease pressure on global oil prices through additional supply. While Russian crude is not under blanket sanctions, Washington has earlier urged India to reduce discounted purchases from Moscow following the Russia-Ukraine war, as reported by The Economic Times.
Indian refiners are expected to manage any supply disruption because of weaker domestic demand and the availability of prompt crude cargoes from the US, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Iraq, a Bloomberg report says.
China’s limited participation in the spot market has also helped preserve supply availability, while maintenance shutdowns at Reliance Industries Ltd and Nayara Energy Ltd have reduced purchases by private refiners, traders told Bloomberg.
India started buying discounted Russian crude since 2022 after Western sanctions reshaped global oil trade flows following the Ukraine war. Indian refiners had briefly reduced purchases last year under pressure from Washington, but imports later recovered strongly.
India’s Russian oil imports in May are expected to remain near 1.9 million barrels per day, close to peak levels, Kpler data cited by Bloomberg showed.
It has also been reported that Russian crude held in floating storage has risen to more than 7 million barrels globally, up fivefold from a month ago, partly because refinery maintenance in India slowed processing demand.
“There are limited alternatives available at similar scale and pricing, particularly in a market still dealing with geopolitical uncertainty and uneven Middle Eastern flows,” Sumit Ritolia, modelling and refining manager at Kpler Ltd., told Bloomberg. “India is unlikely to move away from Russian crude in the near term.”
Washington could extend the waiver again, Indian refiners believe. US treasury secretary Scott Bessent had said in April that the waiver would not be renewed, but the administration later issued another short-term extension.
India has around 60 days of crude oil and LNG reserves and about 45 days of LPG stockpiles, oil minister Hardeep Singh Puri has said
“We have not had any difficulty in getting the crudes which we want,”
Vikas Kaushal, chairman, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd, told analysts last week. “Of course, I would wish they were coming to me $30 cheaper than what they are coming in at, but that’s a different aspect.”
