AsianOil: EU claims of New Delhi acting as a Russian middleman shrugged off in India

In mid-May, Josep Borell, the long-serving European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and vice-president of the European Commission, very publicly took issue with imports of Indian fuel into member states of the EU, saying that the bloc needs to crack down on what is essentially the reprocessing and selling on of sanctioned Russian crude oil by New Delhi.

As of May this year India was one of the top buyers of Russian crude in the wake of the February 24, 2022 invasion of Ukraine. China too has been importing record amounts of oil from Moscow, although with discounts having gone down by as much as $2 per barrel this month, volumes moving between Moscow and Beijing may soon start to decline. 

Discounts offered to Indian refineries by Moscow are still in place, though, and have seen New Delhi snap up Russian Urals crude for prices between $20 and $30 per barrel below the Brent benchmark. This saw Russia quickly rise to the top of the suppliers rankings for the subcontinent.

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