OPEC’s second-largest producer, Iraq, exported crude oil and petroleum products worth $29.58 billion to India last year, trade data reported by Shafaq News showed on Tuesday.
Iraq, which was India’s top crude oil supplier before 2022 and the flow of cheap Russian oil, unwanted or banned in the West, held in 2024 a market share of about 20% of all crude oil imports into India, the world’s third-largest crude importer.
Total Iraqi crude and refined petroleum product exports to India were valued at $29.58 billion, of which $28.6 billion was crude oil, refined products and derivatives accounted for $1.77 billion of the trade, and petroleum coke, bitumen, and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) exports were valued at $223.5 million, according to the trade data reported by Shafaq News.
Over the past four years, Iraqi crude and product exports to India have grown by 15% each year.
However, Iraq is now India’s second-biggest crude supplier, surpassed by Russia, whose cheap oil has gained a lot of market share in India after Russia diverted crude exports to China and India in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Western embargoes and sanctions on Russia’s oil exports and trade.
The share of OPEC crude supply in India slumped to an all-time low of below 50% of India’s crude oil imports in the 2024-2025 fiscal year, as Russian oil flows continued to rise and dent the share of the Middle Eastern producers.
Russia is an ally of OPEC in the OPEC+ agreements to “stabilize the market,” but it has been eating into the share of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and other major Middle Eastern OPEC producers in India.
The price-sensitive Indian buyers have preferred cheap Russian crude supply, when available.
India will continue to buy Russian oil if it is sold below the $60 per barrel price cap and delivered on non-sanctioned tankers and without any involvement of sanctioned companies or individuals, Indian officials said earlier this year after the U.S. sanctions in January created market chaos for several weeks before tanker supply chains adapted.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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