India’s biggest Russian oil buyer says no January deliveries expected

Reliance Industries said on January 6 that it does not expect to receive any deliveries of Russian crude oil in January, a development that could push India’s imports of Russian oil to their lowest level in years.

The statement from Reliance, which operates the world’s largest refining complex and was India’s biggest buyer of Russian crude last year, followed comments by US President Donald Trump, who warned on Sunday, January 4, that Washington could further raise import tariffs on India over its continued purchases of Russian oil, per Reuters.

In a statement posted on X, Reliance said that its Jamnagar refinery has not received any Russian crude cargoes for approximately the past three weeks and is not anticipating any Russian oil deliveries during January. The company also rejected a media report published last week that claimed three vessels carrying Russian crude were en route to the Jamnagar facility.

India became the largest buyer of discounted Russian seaborne crude after the start of the Ukraine war in 2022, a shift that has drawn criticism from Western countries. The US and its allies have imposed sanctions on Russia’s energy sector, arguing that oil revenues help finance Moscow’s war effort.

Last year, the US doubled import tariffs on Indian goods to 50 per cent in response to India’s heavy purchases of Russian oil. Despite this, New Delhi and Washington are currently engaged in negotiations over a potential trade agreement, talks that have at times been marked by tension.

According to people familiar with the matter, Indian authorities have asked refiners to provide weekly disclosures of their purchases of Russian and US oil, Reuters reported last week. Those sources said India’s imports of Russian crude are likely to fall below 1 million barrels per day as the government seeks to secure a trade deal with the US.

Stricter US and EU sanctions have already slowed Russian oil flows to India, which declined to a three-year low of about 1.2 million barrels per day in December, according to sources and data from analytics firm Kpler. That figure represents a drop of roughly 40 per cent from a peak of around 2 million barrels per day recorded in June.

With Reliance suspending its purchases, Russian oil deliveries to India in January are expected to be largely limited to Russia-backed Nayara Energy and state-run refiners Indian Oil Corp and Bharat Petroleum Corp, based on preliminary data from LSEG. Indian Oil Corp, Bharat Petroleum Corp and Nayara Energy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Nayara Energy, which operates a refinery with a capacity of about 400,000 barrels per day, is likely to remain the main Indian buyer of Russian crude. Government sources told Reuters that the company’s supply options are constrained by EU sanctions after other suppliers withdrew.