India's oil imports from Russia rose to a new record high in April. This further reduced the share of African oil grades.
This is reported by Reuters.
Oil refineries in India buy Russian oil to the maximum. The data showed that India imported about 1.9 million barrels per day of Russian oil in April, up about 4.4% from the previous month. This is about two-fifths of the total volume of purchases in the country.
The increase in imports from Russia increased the share of oil from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia to 43.6% of India's total imports of 4.81 million barrels per day last month.
Reuters writes that this reduced the share of Middle Eastern grades, which traditionally accounted for the bulk of all oil imports, to about 44%, and African oil to 3.4% last month
Russia remains the largest supplier of oil to India for the sixth consecutive month, followed by Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Oil imports from Russia also rose after Indian Oil Corp, the country's largest refiner, increased the size of its annual import deal with Rosneft.
It will be recalled that the data of the Indian state lender Bank of Baroda indicate that in 2022 the import of Russian oil to India increased tenfold.
Russia uses the rupee to pay for imports of goods from India. In this way, it tries to reduce its dependence on US dollars.
The head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, said that the European Union should take tough measures against India's resale of Russian oil to Europe as fuel.
