India is open to exploring the commercial merits of any crude supply options, including any from Venezuela, the external affairs ministry said on Thursday.
The comment comes three days after US President Donald Trump claimed while announcing the trade deal with India that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had agreed to stop purchasing Russian oil and “to buy much more from the United States and, potentially, Venezuela”.
Commerce minister Piyush Goyal said on Thursday that the first tranche of the bilateral trade agreement “is almost ready, and we expect that in the next 4-5 days, we will finalise and sign a joint statement between the US and India”.
“Based on that, the first phase of this partnership will begin,” Goyal said.
After the joint statement, to be signed virtually, the US will issue an executive order lowering tariffs on India from 50 per cent to 18 per cent. This could take a couple of days, he said.
Goyal added that a formal agreement was being drafted, which might take a month or a month and a half. He said the formal agreement would likely be signed by mid-March.
Commerce secretary Rajesh Agrawal said: “Indian tariff reductions (will happen) only after a legal agreement.”
Stating that there is no investment commitment in this pact, Goyal said that to meet the $500-billion bilateral trade target between the two countries — set out in February 2025 during the Prime Minister’s visit to the US — India would need to do a lot more exports.
Asked at the weekly briefing about Trump’s social media post claiming Modi had agreed to stop buying Russian oil and, instead, buy from Venezuela, external affairs ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said: “Consistent with our approach to energy security, India remains open to exploring the commercial merits of any crude supply options, including from Venezuela.”
He did not comment specifically to repeated queries regarding Trump’s claim about India agreeing to stop buying Russian oil, but iterated New Delhi’s longstanding position on energy security.
“Insofar as India’s energy sourcing is concerned, the government has stated publicly on several occasions that ensuring the energy security of 1.4 billion Indians is the supreme priority of the government," Jaiswal said.
"Diversifying our energy sourcing in keeping with objective market conditions and evolving international dynamics is at the core of our strategy to ensure this. All of India’s actions are taken and will be taken with this in mind."
On Venezuelan oil, Jaiswal added: “It has been a longstanding partner for us in the area of energy, both on the trade side as also on the investment side. We were importing crude oil from Venezuela till 2019-20, and thereafter we had to stop.
"Again we started buying oil from Venezuela in 2023-24 but had to stop because of re-imposition of sanctions. Indian PSUs have established partnerships with the national oil company of Venezuela, PDVSA, and our PSUs have maintained presence in the country since 2008.”
Agri assurance
Agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said there would not be any sudden or disruptive entry of foreign products into the Indian market.
He said no market segment had been opened in a manner that could harm Indian farmers, and all major crops, food grains, fruits and dairy products remained shielded. The protections for key agricultural commodities remain intact, Chouhan added.