EurOil: EU again voices concern over buying refined Russian oil from India, without solutions

The EU once more this weekend vented frustration at the “rapid” increase in Indian refined oil product exports to Europe that have been produced using Russian crude, without suggesting a proposal for curbing this trade.

After receiving minor volumes of Russian oil prior to the war in Ukraine, India is now the country’s biggest oil market. And simultaneously, India emerged this year as Europe’s top fuel supplier, inevitably prompting concern from the EU that its efforts to curtail Russian oil revenues – an embargo and a $60 per barrel price cap – are failing. The EU essentially is still receiving Russian hydrocarbons, but in refined rather than crude form.

Brussels has been voicing concern about this trend for months. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, urged the bloc to prevent India from reselling Russian oil to Europe as refined fuel back in May, without offering any answers to how this could be achieved. And on August 24 those concerns were once more expressed by the EU’s Executive Vice President and Commissioner for Trade, Valdis Dombrovskis, during a visit to India.

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