India began to refocus on the purchase of American oil due to the current EU and US sanctions against Russia.
Russia is losing the Indian oil market
According to the "Freedom of Russia" movement, Indian refineries are ready to buy record volumes of American oil to replace Russian oil, which will be the highest figure in almost a year amid escalating US sanctions.
According to Bloomberg sources, state-owned companies Bharat Petroleum, Indian Oil and private company Reliance Industries collectively bought about 7 million barrels of oil from the US in March, scheduled for delivery in April. This purchase sets a new volume record for the month since May 2023.
EU and US sanctions against the Russian oil and gas industry facilitated this.
Previously, the Kremlin reoriented crude oil materials to Asian markets (China, India, Singapore, etc.) through the Russian state carrier of "black gold", the Sovkomflot tanker company.
Moreover, due to the initial imposed sanctions, Sovkomflot was forced to invent various schemes to circumvent them. The so-called "shadow tankers" were also used — floating troughs without insurance and normal maintenance, every voyage of which threatens with an ecological disaster. Such scrap metal belongs to various international shadow dealers, which in this way transported still sanctioned Iranian oil, notes the "Freedom of Russia" movement.
Significant changes took place in February, on the second anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and after the death of Oleksiy Navalny.
"Sovcomflot" was finally sawn off completely — it was included in the blocking list of US sanctions. The states are tired of tolerating the art of Putin's oil tankers (as we can see, the world bureaucracy works slowly but surely), summed up movement's statement.
Losing the Indian market is a real blow to Russian oil revenues.
What is known about India's search for an alternative to Russian oil
In February, Bloomberg noted that while Russia remains India's largest oil supplier, the country is also increasing its imports of oil and petroleum products from other countries.
The mass media emphasised that oil supplies from Saudi Arabia to India increased by 22% from the previous month only during February of this year.
In particular, the largest Indian refinery Reliance Industries Ltd purchased the largest volumes of oil from Saudi Arabia since May 2020.
It will be recalled that India's oil imports from Russia increased sharply after the start of the war, as Moscow offered significant discounts. However, after sanctions were tightened in December, supplies fell to their lowest level since last January.
Some crude oil tankers have delayed deliveries, turned 180 degrees or switched off their transponders after failing to deliver oil to Indian ports.
