This month, India has surpassed Russia as the continent's largest exporter of refined fuels while also purchasing record volumes of Russian crude, according to data analytics company KPLER.
Europe is now increasingly reliant on goods manufactured from Indian crude oil as a result of the prohibition on Russian oil. According to KPLER's estimates, the European Union will soon surpass Saudi Arabia in terms of daily imports of refined petroleum when it reaches 360,000 barrels from India.
The development has benefits and drawbacks for the European Union. On the one hand, the EU needs new fuel sources since that it has stopped receiving direct imports from Russia, which was formerly its top supplier. But in the end, it leads to a rise in the price of goods and a rise in demand for Moscow's barrels.
It also intensifies rivalry for European oil refiners who are unable to obtain cheap Russian crude, and it corresponds with greater market vigilance about the country of origin of the region's diesel imports.
According to KPLER statistics, India is expected to buy more over 2 million barrels of Russian crude oil per day in April, making up almost 44% of all oil imports from the nation.
For the first time, Russia was a substantial supplier of oil to India in 2022–2023 (FY23), when it started to supply oil at a discount due to the crisis in Ukraine. Despite the worries the West had about India buying Russian goods during the conflict. India has said that it intends to explore every avenue for achieving energy security.
Despite the western price cap of USD 60 per barrel, the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry reports that Russia was India's top crude oil exporter by value in February. February saw a total of USD 3.35 billion in Russian crude imports, followed by USD 2.30 billion from Saudi Arabia and USD 2.03 billion from Iraq.
In order to limit Russian oil earnings and avert a sharp increase in oil prices, the western countries continued to impose a price cap on oil.
