Why India is buying more Russian oil
Russia is seeking new markets for its oil exports as Western sanctions tighten - and India has been taking advantage of discounted prices to ramp up imports from the country.
The US has said that although these oil imports do not violate sanctions, "support for Russia...is support for an invasion that obviously is having a devastating impact".After the US and China, India is the world's third-largest consumer of oil, over 80% of which is imported.By far the largest supplies last year came from the Middle East, with significant quantities also from the US and Nigeria.
The Indian government says even if it buys more oil from Russia, it would "still be a drop, literally a drop, in a larger bucket" of its oil imports globally.Following its invasion of Ukraine, there are now fewer buyers for Russia's Ural crude oil, and its price has fallen. "While we don't know the exact price that India is paying, the Urals discount to Brent crude [the global benchmark] in the last week has widened to about $30 per barrel," says Matt Smith, an analyst at Kpler.But at one point in March, as the price of Urals continued to drop, the difference between them reached an all-time record, he adds.
So "India and China are likely to purchase at least some of this [Russian] crude at a significant discount," he says.
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