India’s Russian Oil Imports Soar as US Sanctions Threat Fades, West Asia Conflict Continues
New Delhi: As the US and Israel's war on Iran and Israel's attacks on Lebanon continue, Indian oil refiners have been spending heavily on Russian crude oil with imports rising to their highest since June 2023 even as the threat of US sanctions recedes and the union government saying that the priority is to meet domestic demand.
Indian imports from Russia averaged 1.98 million barrels a day in March, the highest since June 2023, Bloomberg has reported citing data from analytics firm Kpler. The report said that while imports dipped in April to an average of 1.57 million barrels a day, this was largely due to Nayara Energy’s 400,000 barrel-a-day refinery, which runs largely on Russian crude, has shut down for maintenance.
“India is grabbing all the Russian crude it can get its hands on,” Vandana Hari, founder of Singapore consultancy Vanda Insights was quoted as saying to the newspaper.
“I expect India to continue maximising Russian intake as long as its flows from Persian Gulf remain crimped.”
The oil ministry has however said that the priority is to meet domestic supply demands.
“Our priority is to source the energy needed to meet our domestic demand,” said Sujata Sharma, joint secretary in the oil ministry, when asked how critical US waivers were to India’s decision to import Russian oil.
While speaking to reporters during a briefing in New Delhi on Friday she said that the choice “is driven by the technical commercial feasibility of the crude and the commercial sense it makes to our refiners,”
The Bloomberg report said that leading oil refiners expected the US waiver allowing the purchase of Russian oil to be extended before it expires in the coming days, with purchases unlikely to drop back even without that, given a dearth of supply options.
Last month, the US allowed the sale of Russian oil to India for a period of 30 days, in an effort meant to relieve price pressures caused by the ongoing conflict with Iran. The waiver came amid the US and Israel's war on Iran which has made it difficult to ship oil through the Strait of Hormuz, a key conduit for India and purportedly responsible for 40% of its crude supply.
Last year, the Trump administration had imposed a 25% ‘penalty’ tariff on Indian exports citing the purchase of Russian crude, atop an already heavy 25% ‘reciprocal’ tariff. This penalty was withdrawn earlier this year but Trump had said that his government could consider re-imposing the levy were New Delhi to “directly or indirectly” resume intake.
The Wire has earlier reported that following the US tariffs, India’s Russian crude imports had been falling. Purchases dropped to roughly 1.1 million barrels per day during the first three weeks of January, down from an average of 1.21 million barrels daily the previous month and more than two million barrels per day at their peak in mid-2025.
With India reducing its imports, Russian crude had been building up in the later half of 2025. Volumes reached a peak in early January at around 155 million barrels, according to data intelligence firm Vortexa, compared to around 93.2 million in the middle of last year, the Bloomberg report said. At present, Russian crude on water is at 100 million barrels — a number that may include cargoes that already have buyers — close to what was last seen a year ago.
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