• Russia has overtaken Saudi Arabia to become India’s second-biggest supplier of oil behind Iraq as refiners snap up Russian crude available at a deep discount following the war in Ukraine.
• Indian refiners bought about25 million barrels of Russian oil in May, or more than 16 per cent of all their oil imports.
• Russian-origin crude hit 5 per cent of India’s total seaborne imports in April for the first time, rising from under 1% throughout 2021 and Q1 2022.

Key points:

• After the S. and China, India is the world’s third-largest consumer of oil, over 85 per cent of which is imported.
• The Oil Ministry had last month stated that “energy purchases from Russia remain minuscule in comparison to India’s total consumption.”
• Iraq remained the top supplier to India in May and Saudi Arabia is now the third biggest supplier.
• India has taken advantage of discounted prices to ramp up oil imports from Russia at a time when global energy prices have been rising.