There has been a big decline in India's crude oil imports from Russia in August. Oil imports from Russia have fallen by about 26.3% in August compared to July. According to preliminary data from kpler, India imported about 2.08 million barrels of crude oil from Russia every day in August, while in July this figure was about 2.82 million barrels.
Big decline in Russian oil imports
According to the data, India imported about 2.82 million barrels of crude oil every day from Russia in July. In August this figure dropped to about 2.08 million barrels per day. That means there was a decrease of about 26.3 percent in imports in a month. In the last few years, India has benefited a lot from the cheap price of Russian oil. Because of this, Russia has become an important partner in India's oil imports.
Impact of China's increasing purchases on India
Competition is increasing between India and China for cheaper crude oil from Russia. The increasing buying of Russian oil by Chinese refiners has affected some of the barrels of oil that India receives. Due to reduction in Russian oil supply and increasing demand in Asia, Indian companies are having to make some changes in their oil purchasing policy.
Apart from this, scheduled maintenance and repair work is going on in some refineries in India, due to which the demand for crude oil has reduced to some extent. Therefore, the decline in Russian oil imports in August is not believed to be due to any one reason, but due to a combination of many reasons.
Russia remains India's main oil supplier
Despite a sharp decline in imports, Russia remains important in India's energy sector. Russia's share in India's total crude oil imports in August was about 45%. Therefore, increasing demand from China and changes in the global oil market have created a challenge for India to maintain the supply of cheap crude oil. India is one of the world's largest crude oil importers.
Therefore, changes in Russia's oil supply could impact the country's refining sector as well as petrol and diesel prices, trade deficit and energy security. Global markets will be closely watching how much oil China buys from Russia as demand increases in the coming months.
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