New Delhi: India has reportedly scaled back the purchases of Russian crude oil for December, in what appears to be an impact of Western sanctions and ongoing trade talks with the US, Bloomberg has reported.

At least five big Indian refiners haven’t placed any orders for Russian oil for next month, according to the report, which typically, should have been done by the 10th of the current month.

In August, US President Donald Trump doubled trade tariffs on India, imposing 50% tariffs on imports – 25% of which is ‘penalty’ for buying Russian oil.

Trump had accused New Delhi of helping fund the Kremlin's war in Ukraine. 

On Monday, when asked whether he was considering lowering the tariffs on India, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, “Right now the tariffs are very high on India because of the Russian oil and they’ve stopped doing the Russian oil. It’s been reduced very substantially. Yeah, we’re going to be bringing the tariffs down on India.”

He also indicated that Washington was “pretty close” to doing a “fair trade deal” with India. 

“We’re making a deal with India – a much different deal than we had in the past. So right now, they don’t love me, but they’ll love us. Again, uh, we’re getting a fair deal, just a fair trade deal. We had pretty unfair trade deals. They’re very good negotiators… But we’re getting close, I think we’re pretty close to doing a deal that’s good for everybody,” Trump had said.

Trump has claimed a few times in the past too that India will stop purchasing oil from Russia, a statement which New Delhi has not yet fully refuted.

To one of these remarks in October, the Ministry of External Affairs had issued a carefully worded response stating that New Delhi was already “diversifying” its sourcing.

In recent years, India has heavily depended on the discounted Russian crude oil.

The five refiners that scaled back this month – Reliance Industries Ltd., Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd., Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd., Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd. and HPCL-Mittal Energy Ltd. – reportedly accounted for two-thirds of India’s imports of the Russian crude this year so far, as per Kpler data cited by Bloomberg.

Two other processors – Indian Oil Corp. and Nayara Energy Ltd. – have bought some Russian crude for December. While IOC has purchased from non-sanctioned sellers, Nayara, which is partly owned by Russia’s state-owned Rosneft, continues to rely solely on Russian crude.

At the same time, a new Kpler report states Indian-origin gasoil and diesel cargoes have resumed deliveries to Sudan after a hiatus of more than a year.

"Since June this year, a total of 11 Medium Range (MR) tankers have either discharged or are expected to discharge in Port Sudan. Prior to the resumption, the last observed full cargo shipment occurred aboard the MR D&K Abdul Razzak Khalid Zaid Al-Khalid, which loaded diesel at Jamnagar refinery on November 12, 2023, and discharged in Port Sudan on December 7, 2023," the report stated, adding that it also signals a re-emergence of trade ties that were last active between November 2022 and
June 2023, when six MR cargoes were sent along the same route.

Meanwhile, Nayara's Vadinar refinery, which has faced direct restrictions by the Western sanctions, has redirected clean
petroleum product (CPP) exports toward Latin America, the Bahamas, and Turkey, it said.

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