In April, Russia became India’s fourth-biggest oil supplier, and supply will increase further in the coming months as low oil prices boost demand in the world’s third-largest oil consumer and importer, tanker-tracking data showed. Russia’s share of India’s oil purchases rose to a record 6% in April, at around 277,000 BPD, from around 66,000 BPD in March, placing it in 10th place, reports the media. The country’s largest refiner Indian Oil Corp bought the first batch of Russian Arko oil last month.

Western sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have opened a rare arbitrage flow, prompting Indian refiners to increase their purchases of cheap Russian oil that many Western countries and companies shunned.

Indians bought stranded Russian oil, while some European buyers bought more African and US oil. Africa’s share of India’s total oil imports fell to around 6% in April from 14.5% in March, while the US share almost halved to 3%.
Grades from Azerbaijan, Russia and Kazakhstan combined accounted for about 11% of India’s oil imports in April, compared with about 3% in March. Middle East oil’s share rose from 68% to 71%.

Preliminary data from Refinitiv flow showed that India’s oil imports from Russia would further increase to about 487,500 cargoes in May as refiners increase their purchases from Russia. Last month, Iraq continued to be India’s top oil supplier, followed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Indian refineries shipped 4.7 million BPD of oil in April, up 6.9% from the previous month and about 11.6% from a year earlier, when the second wave of COVID-19 hit local oil demand. In April, India’s oil imports were high as refiners boosted output to meet local demand and benefited from strong refining margins, Haq said.

Rising imports from Russia weighed on OPEC’s share of foreign supply to India in April. OPEC’s share of India’s oil imports fell to a record low.