With the European Union deciding on a roadmap to ban majority of Russian oil and petroleum products by the end of the year, data shows that Indian imports of Russian oil has spiked multiple times, more than what it was a year back.

Data from analytics firm Kpler shows that India’s imports of Russian oil hit a record in May with over 8.40 lakh barrels imported per day.

Kpler also reported a month-on-month increase of 20 percent to 1 million barrels per day in June. India requires 5 million barrels oil per day.

Viktor Katona, Head of Crude Market Analysis at Kpler, said India has become the key market outlet for Russian crude oil.

“Russia is pushing all the crude oil that it can on to the global markets. A lot of buyers have self-sanctioned, but there are some key market outlets and India has become the key market outlet for Russian crude.”

He said India has become the largest buyer of Russian crude and if the current trend persists, India’s Russian crude imports could be 20 percent higher in June.

“Before February 2022, there were no Indian imports of Russian crude. March was the first step when refiners realised that this is a business opportunity that they can go into. People started realising that there is deep discount that you get with Russian crude of below USD 30 per barrel compared to Brent. So in April and May Indian buying of Russian crude has been very strong. India’s May import number of Russian crude seems high but the June import number will be even higher and July will be roughly the same. So if the current trend persists India’s buying of Russian crude could be 20 percent higher in June.”

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