Israel Iran War: India has increased the purchase of crude oil from Russia in June amidst the ups and downs in the market after Israel’s attack on Iran. India’s oil purchases from Russia in June have exceeded the imported quantity from West Asia suppliers Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
Israel first attacked the Iranian nuclear bases on 13 June. Since then, there is a fierce battle in both countries. The US Army attacked three sites in Iran on Sunday morning. He has directly joined Israel in this war.
Initial data from the global trade analyst company Kepler shows that Indian refinery companies are buying 2 to 22 lakh barrels of crude oil daily from Russia in June. This is the highest figure of two years. Along with this, it is more than the total quantity purchased from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait. India’s oil imports from Russia in May were 19.6 lakh barrels per day (BPD).
According to Kepler, imports from the US also increased to 4,39,000 BPD in June. Last month the figure was 2,80,000 BPD. The entire month’s estimate for imports from West Asia is about 2 million barrels per day, less than the purchase of the previous month.
The world’s third largest oil importer and consumer country India buys about 51 lakh barrels of crude oil from abroad, which is converted into fuel like petrol and diesel in the refinery.
India has traditionally been buying crude oil from West Asia. Soon after the Russian attack on Ukraine in February 2022, India started importing large quantities of crude oil from Russia.
The main reason for this was that Russian oil was available at a much cheaper price compared to other international benchmarks due to Western sanctions and some European countries avoiding purchases. This saw a dramatic increase in India’s Russian oil imports. Once India’s import of crude oil from Russia was less than one percent. But after the Russia’s attack on Ukraine, it had increased to 40-44 percent in a short time.
Edited by: Nrapendra Gupta
