Is the love story (and oil) between India and Russia over?
Western sanctions on Moscow have pushed India, a major importer of Russian oil, to turn to Saudi Arabia to meet its energy needs. All the details
In 2023, despite a historic boom in energy trade between India and Russia, payment complications due to Western sanctions have pushed India to look towards Saudi Arabia for its oil needs.
RUSSIAN OIL EXPORTS TO INDIA DROP
With the persistence of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Russia is also oriented towards the East for 2024, limited in its interactions with the West. However, as Bloomberg reported on January 1, there was a one-third reduction in Russian oil supplies to India in December compared to the peak in May 2023, falling from 2.15 million to 1.48 million barrels per day.
Analysts have linked this decline to India's payment difficulties, but India has stressed that the reduction is due to the unfavorable prices offered by Russia. Analysts attribute the decline to payment problems. Moscow and New Delhi have explored the use of the Emirati dirham as a solution, but Rosneft Sakhalin-1 has failed to establish a bank account in the Emirates.
Russia, reluctant to accept payments in Indian rupees, finds itself with a surplus of the currency. New Delhi, meanwhile, did not wait for Russia to resolve its banking problems, increasing purchases from Saudi Arabia. Indian Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said the reduction in purchases from Russia was due to uncompetitive prices, underlining the importance of affordable energy supplies for the Indian consumer.
IS NEW DELHI SENDING WEAPONS TO UKRAINE?
At the same time, trade between Russia and India has struggled over the past two years. According to The Economic Times , New Delhi has reportedly supplied 155mm artillery ammunition to Ukraine via a third country, first selling it to a NATO state.
Russia expressed outrage and asked for clarification, but India denied supplying weapons to Kiev. Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said India had not sold such munitions to any country.
According to experts at Eurasianet , Indian neutrality in this context is to be expected. India's neighbor Pakistan has also traded arms to Ukraine through third countries, taking advantage of cheaper Russian energy resources in the process. New Delhi, saving billions in 2023 by buying Russian oil at discounted prices, has shown an attractive example for other countries.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/india-petrolio-arabia-saudita-russia/ on Wed, 10 Jan 2024 10:52:38 +0000.