Indian refiners imported 1.78 million barrels a day (mb/d) of crude oil from Russia in April, up 19% from March, according to energy cargo tracker Vortexa. This exceeded China's import of 1.27 mb/d and Europe's 396,000 barrels per day (bp/d) of seaborne Russian crude in April.
Russia supplied more oil to India than its next three top suppliers - Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the UAE - put together in April.
India's overall crude imports, however, dropped 8% month-on-month to 4.5 mb/d in April. Imports from Iraq, the second-largest supplier, dropped 31% to 776,000 barrels per day (bp/d) while the supply from Saudi Arabia fell 6% to 681,000 bp/d. The UAE's exports to India fell by 40% while those from the US reduced by 15%.
Iraq's share in Indian imports fell to 17% in April from 23% in March while that of the UAE declined to 6% from 9%. Russia's share in April was higher than the average of 35% in 2023-24.
"India's imports of Russian crude in April rose to a nine-month high. Higher Russian crude exports in Feb/Mar as well as lower imports by Chinese refiners have made available more volumes for Indian refiners," said Serena Huang, analyst at Vortexa.
High global oil prices are driving up Indian refiners' appetite for Russian oil as it helps lower their average crude purchase costs, said an industry executive. Higher oil prices are already weighing on Indian refiner's profits, with Indian Oil, the nation's top refiner, reporting a 52% drop in its fourth-quarter profit.
Brent, the international crude benchmark, is around USD 85 per barrel, reflecting the current physical demand-supply situation and the geopolitical premium due to the Middle East conflict.
Urals, the flagship Russian crude, is available at a discount of USD 7-8 per barrel to Brent on a free-on-board basis. Discount narrows to about USD 2-3 per barrel on a delivered-at-port basis, the preferred mode of Russian crude purchase by Indian refiners. Urals made up 89% of India's Russian oil purchases in both April and March.
Indian private sector refiners - Reliance Industries and Nayara Energy - accounted for 45% of all Russian crude imports in April. Nayara Energy is partly owned by Russian energy giant Rosneft.
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