Friday, 12 Sep, 2025
By: Yash Gupte
According to estimates, India has been able to save Rs. 35,000 crore as it has preferred to purchase the Russian crude oil at a discounted rate. Russia offered cheap crude oil to India amid the Russia-Ukraine war as the former faced economic sanctions
India has gained big from the discounted Russian oil imports since the Russia-Ukraine war. According to estimates, India has been able to save Rs. 35,000 crore as it has preferred to purchase the Russian crude oil at a discounted rate. Russia offered cheap crude oil to India amid the Russia-Ukraine war as the former faced economic sanctions from the western world and this was the reason that Russia turned to the Asian countries like India and China for its oil exports. India decided to import the crude oil from Russia despite the pressure put by the western nations on India to boycott Russian imports.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had also said in the beginning of this month that import of Russian crude oil at a discounted price is India’s inflation management strategy and other countries were also following the same path. In fact, India has reportedly overtaken China as the second-largest consumer of Russian crude oil. Twelve percent of the nation's total oil purchases come from Russian oil, up from less than 1% before the war. Russia overtook Saudi Arabia as India's second-largest oil supplier in July 2022, dropping Saudi Arabia to third. Despite Riyadh regaining its position in August 2022, Russia continues to be India's third-largest oil supplier. Therefore, India Tracker takes a look at India’s oil imports from Russia.
Since 83% of New Delhi's oil demand is met through imports, which also tends to make the economy vulnerable, the price of oil is an extremely important factor for the country. The cost of India's oil imports had doubled to $119 billion in 2021–2022. This led to strain on the government's finances and resulted in a slow paced post pandemic economic recovery. However, despite the enormous savings cited by Times of India, the cost of petrol and diesel in India has not decreased, despite the fact that global crude prices have fallen to a seven-month low.
Source: Ministry of Commerce and Industry
During March 2022, the oil imports from Russia were reported at $865 million. In the next month, the Russian oil imports witnessed a two-fold rise as oil worth $1897 was imported by India. This number increased to an all time high at $3602 million in June 2022. India was able to save Rs 35,000 crore due to the increase in imports of discounted oil from Russia. This shows that there was a continuous rise in the import of Russian oil but the month of July shows a different story as there was a decline in the import. Russian oil worth $3393 was imported in July as compared to $3602 in June. Though the data for the month of august is not available with the ministry of commerce and industry, Economic Times reported that India imported 7,38,024 barrels per day from Russia which is 18% lower than in July. The report also noted a decrease in India's overall imports over the past few months. Oil imports were 13% and 15% lower than in July and June, respectively, at 40,49,167 barrels per day.
Though there has been a decline in oil imports from Russia, the evolving geopolitical developments and more stringent measures by the western nations to curb Russia’s oil exports will force Russia to export more oil at discounted rate which will prove beneficial for countries like India and China.
