While Indian refiners are scrambling to understand the implications of President Trump’s threatened “penalties” on India for buying Russian oil, at least four tankers carrying crude cargoes from Russia were staying idle off India’s west coast on Friday, ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Three of the four tankers are sanctioned by either the EU or the UK, or both, and had loaded at Russian ports in June. Now that they have arrived in India, the vessels are anchored off major oil import ports in western India until refiners receive some clarification regarding penalties and sanctions threatened by the West.
India is struggling to determine the impact and is drawing up plans for the possibility that crude from Russia, its single biggest oil supplier, may become unavailable.
India’s top state refiners have not purchased any crude from Russia this week after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened secondary tariffs on the buyers of Russian oil and as discounts of Moscow’s crudes narrowed to alternatives, industry sources with knowledge of the procurement plans told Reuters on Thursday.
President Trump announced on Wednesday that Indian goods in the U.S. would be taxed with a 25% tariff, and India would also pay a “penalty” for buying the vast majority of its military equipment and oil from Russia, effective August 1.
Indian refiners have reportedly asked the Indian oil ministry for urgent guidance how to proceed with crude oil flows from Russia arriving after August 1.
Authorities in India have told state refiners to draft plans for alternative crude sourcing in case Russian crude oil flows stopped, sources with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg on Thursday.
The world’s third-largest crude oil importer, India, has significantly boosted Russian oil imports since 2022, when Russia’s oil was banned in the West. Russia currently accounts for about a third of India’s oil purchases, becoming the single largest crude supplier to India.
A halt of purchases of Russian oil by India would upend global crude flows and the procurement plans of other major oil importers as the South Asian nation would turn to more Middle Eastern, U.S., and West African supply.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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