India has named its version of reducing Russian oil supplies

The reduction in Russian oil supplies to India in December 2023 was not due to payment problems, but due to the unattractiveness of discounts. According to Bloomberg , Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said this at a briefing.

Earlier, the agency, citing data from the analytical company Kpler, reported that India's imports of Russian oil fell in December to the lowest level since January 2023. This happened due to problems with payment, as Washington strengthened control over compliance with sanctions, including a price ceiling of $60 per barrel on Russian oil.oil , Bloomberg claimed.

“There is no problem with payment,” Puri said. “This is a pure function of the price at which our processors will buy,” Puri explained. According to the minister, the country requires 5 million barrels of oil per day, of which 1.5 million comes from Russia, and this, the minister emphasized, indicates that there are no problems with payment.

The agency notes that Puri in his response did not mention the oil price ceiling imposed by the G7 as a sanction against Russia.

India is one of the largest importers of crude oil in Asia and has become a major buyer of Russian hydrocarbons after the start of military operations in Ukraine and tightening sanctions against Russia.

Bloomberg reported on December 21 that tankers carrying 5 million barrels of Russian Sokol oil that were carrying cargo to India were idled several miles offshore. By that time, in some cases the delay had already reached four weeks.

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According to the agency, the delay may be due to US sanctions: in October, the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed restrictions against two companies from the UAE and Turkey for transporting Russian oil in violation of the price ceiling imposed by the G7 countries. More sanctions followed in November and December; as Bloomberg notes, they affected eight vessels.

In April 2023, Bloomberg reported that Indian banks were advising oil refineries not to buy Russian oil above the price ceiling imposed by Western countries. State Bank of India and Bank of Baroda have informed local refineries that they will not process payments for oil purchased above the limit.

In June, the agency reported that up to $1 billion in rupees was accumulating in the bank accounts of Russian companies in India every month, since these funds were almost impossible to spend due to currency restrictions in the country. In September, VTB Chairman of the Board Andrei Kostin, in an interview with RBC, said that large Russian banks - VTB and Sberbank - have already found ways to convert Indian rupees into rubles to return this foreign currency export earnings to Russia.