India’s surging reliance on Russian oil has finally got the goat of US President Donald Trump, who threatened to slap a penalty to discourage India from buying fossil fuels from Moscow, in an attempt to put pressure on Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine.

Data compiled by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air shows that in June, India remained the second-largest purchaser of Russian energy, worth €4.5 billion, with crude oil accounting for 80 per cent (€3.6 billion) of these imports. While India’s imports of crude oil dropped by 6 per cent in June, Russian volumes saw an 8 per cent month-on-month jump, reaching their highest levels since July 2024.

India imports more than 85 per cent of its crude oil requirement, which is refined into fuels such as petrol and diesel. Russia accounts for roughly 40 per cent of India’s overall supplies, followed by Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Previously, India had downplayed the threats of US sanctions with oil minister Hardeep Singh Puri arguing that the world’s third-largest oil importer should be able to deal with any problems with Russian imports by seeking supplies from other countries.

Steady rise

India started snapping up Russian crude after the start of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. From a market share of just 0.2 per cent in India’s import basket before the start of the war, Russia overtook Iraq and Saudi Arabia to become India’s top supplier, with a share as high as 40 per cent.

The pivot came as Western sanctions against Russia pushed it to cut prices for those who were willing to purchase its crude oil. The discounts on Russia’s flagship Urals crude to Brent — the world’s most well-known benchmark — were as high as $40 per barrel at one point but have been trimmed since to less than $3.

India bought 68,000 barrels per day of oil from Russia in January 2022, according to global real-time data and analytics provider Kpler, compared with Iraq and Saudi Arabia, which exported 1.23 million bpd and 883,000 bpd, respectively. In June 2022, Russia overtook Iraq to become India’s largest oil supplier, and it peaked at 2.15 million bpd in May 2023.

The volumes never slipped below 1.4 million bpd, which is more than what India was buying from its top supplier, Iraq, before the Russia-Ukraine conflict. This month, imports from Russia have averaged 1.78 million bpd, almost double that of Iraq and Saudi imports, according to Kpler.