Delhi, January 24: Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas of India Hardeep Singh Puri attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on January 16 and expressed his views on current position of India in terms of crude oil trades in the 54th annual meeting.
India is world s 3rd largest oil importer and also has a huge consumer market so India can easily leverage its increasing demand to settle down with better oil supply deals. The Refine industry has already started pursuing new alternatives to Russian oil.
India was the top buyer of Russian oil till last 2 years. Imports from Russia slowed and reached its lowest due to US imposing unreasonable tariffs on Indian imports as the Trump administration was clearly upset about India having good relationship ties with Russia. Because of pressure from the US, Indian refiners seek imports from other OPEC countries.
In the annual meeting, Indian officials refrained from squarely referencing Russian oil imports, the Indian minister Hardeep Singh Puri said “supplies that had spiked from ‘one supplier’ after February 2022 were now tapering off” he also added the high demand “gives a little bit of positioning inside the world to contract the deals in the country’s at most interest”
India has diversified its crude oil imports, sourcing supplies from countries including Brazil, Guyana, Suriname and the United States through separate contracts and spot purchases. Refiners have bought oil from Middle Eastern, African and South American countries to replace all of the Russian import oil, which in turn is anticipated to help the country in further negotiations with US regarding tariffs.
Hardeep Singh highlighted the contracts and deals with Brazil’s Petrobras, who signed an annual contract with Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd and also doubled the size of the deal. Indian Oil Corp bought 7 million barrels of oil from many different distributors and purchased its first Colombian and Ecuadorean Oriente oil.
Also Read |Indian Oil Cuts Russian Crude Dependence With 7-Million-Barrel Shift to Brazil, Angola and UAE
