AsianOil: India to continue buying Russian oil above price cap

India will continue to buy Russia oil above the G7 price cap of $60 per barrel in an effort to fight inflation and encourage economic growth at home, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said this week in an interview with Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, India and China together bought some 90% of the Russian Urals crude on the market during the first half of April at a price above the cap set by the G7 nations, according to a report from Reuters. It cited Refinitiv Eikon data as suggesting the India purchased 70% Urals oil cargoes during the period and that China had bought 20%.

Sitharaman said India would continue to buy Russian oil above the cap “because otherwise I’ll end up paying far more than what I can afford. We have a large population and we also therefore have to look at prices which are going to be affordable to us,” she told Bloomberg while in Washington.

Indian imports of Russian oil now exceed imports from its usual main suppliers, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

The finance minister said she considers external factors such as the OPEC+ production cut and the sanctions taken by Western countries against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine as the biggest threat to the Indian economy. “The spillover of all the decisions” related to the Ukraine war and the impact on prices following the OPEC+ production cut are “the two main things which I think I’d be more worried about than anything internal.”

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