India is not concerned about President Trump’s threat to crack down on Russia’s oil exports and slap secondary sanctions or tariffs on buyers of Russian crude if no peace deal on Ukraine is reached in 50 days.
“I’m not worried at all. If something happens, we’ll deal with it,” India’s Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister, Hardeep Singh Puri, said at an industry event in New Delhi on Thursday.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the bans on Russian oil in the West, India has become a key buyer of Russian crude, alongside China. Russia, for its part, became the single biggest oil supplier to India, providing about one third of all crude supply.
OPEC’s market share 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.
For now, India appears unfazed and is playing down the threat, saying it has diversified its supply sources and more oil will be available soon on the market.
“India has diversified the sources of supply and we have gone, I think, from about 27 countries that we used to buy from to about 40 countries now,” minister Puri said.
“There is a lot of oil available in the market…Many countries, including Brazil, Canada and others, are ramping up output. I am not unduly worried about supplies as of now. We have diversified our sources,” Puri said.
India feels “no pressure” and has enough supply options to ensure uninterrupted flows of crude, the minister added.
India is the world’s third-largest crude oil importer and its demand growth is already outpacing the increase in oil demand in China, where electric vehicles (EVs), electric trucks, and LNG-fueled heavy-duty vehicles are denting consumption of gasoline and diesel.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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