Indian Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Thursday that India will be able to get the oil it needs, even if President Donald Trump imposes steep secondary tariffs on countries that do business with Russia.
“I’m not worried at all. If something happens, we’ll deal with it,” Puri said while attending an oil industry event in New Delhi.
“India has diversified the sources of supply and we have gone, I think, from about 27 countries that we used to buy from to about 40 countries now,” he said.
Puri’s remarks sidestepped the problem that India gets over a third of its oil from just one of those 40 countries, and it is the one that invaded Ukraine.
India’s oil imports from Russia soared after the Western world imposed sanctions on Russia for the invasion and Russia began offering its energy products to ravenous India and China at discount prices.
India’s volume of oil imports from Russia increased substantially this year, rising to 2.2 million barrels per day (bpd) in June, which is more than India gets from its next four biggest suppliers combined. India is the world’s largest importer and consumer of oil, and over the past fiscal year, 36 percent of that oil came from Russia. The OPEC nations of the Middle East covered 48% of India’s business between them.
If Trump imposes secondary tariffs of 100 percent or more on Russia’s oil customers, India could attempt to mitigate the effect by shifting more of its purchases to other providers. The Trump administration would, of course, be delighted if one of those providers was America.
As Russia’s early post-invasion discounts for oil faded, its price advantage over American oil has grown smaller. Russian oil was up to $20 cheaper than American oil after the war in Ukraine began, but now the difference is closer to $3 per barrel.
India’s imports from the United States increased tremendously in June, rising from 280,000 bpd to 439,000 bpd, but that is still only a fraction of the over 2 million bpd India bought from Russia in the same month.
The chairman of the state-owned India Oil Corporation, A.S. Shaney, attended the same industry event as Puri on Thursday. Shaney said that if Russian oil effectively doubles in price due to secondary tariffs, his company would “go back to the same template as was used pre-Ukraine crisis, when Russian supplies to India were below two percent.”
This is exactly what President Donald Trump wants to hear, since his threat of secondary sanctions will only have a chance of adjusting Moscow’s attitude if the Russians believe their oil export business might be wiped out.
Returning to the pre-war “template” might be a little easier said than done, since India consumes much more oil today than it did in 2022. India surpassed China as the world’s top oil consumer in 2024, although industry analysts predict China will retake the fossil fuel crown in the next year or two if its economy recovers.
The Indian Foreign Ministry was considerably less sanguine about the prospect of losing Russia’s oil than the Oil Ministry.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal rejected NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s suggestion on Wednesday that India, China, and Russia’s other oil customers should “make the phone call to Vladimir Putin and tell him that he has to get serious about peace talks,” if they wish to avoid the “massive” burden of new sanctions.
“Let me reiterate that securing the energy needs of our people is understandably an overriding priority for us. In this endeavor, we are guided by what is available in the markets and by prevailing global circumstances. We would particularly caution against any double standards on the matter,” Jaiswal said.
Jaiswal was alluding to New Delhi’s talking point that Rutte was a hypocrite for dumping the Russia problem on China and India because Europeans still buy a good deal of Russian oil and gas, even after canceling much of their business in the wake of the Ukraine invasion.
The Indian Express on Thursday predicted a surge of Russian oil purchases by Indian refineries right before secondary tariffs go into effect, loading up warehouses with as much discounted oil as possible before the hammer comes down.
“Simultaneously, India is expected to sustain its diversification efforts by tapping additional crude oil volumes from Africa, Latin America, and the U.S. to optimize refinery economics, balance geopolitical exposure, and enhance energy security,” the Indian Express anticipated.
