The relationship between India and OPEC is more important now than ever. Any lingering ill-feelings between India and Saudi Arabia from their spat over the price of crude earlier this year should be quickly cast aside, to focus on each other’s growing importance as consumer and supplier.
If OPEC needed a sobering reminder of India’s importance as a customer, it received it in the worst possible way: the resurgence of the coronavirus pandemic in the world’s third biggest oil importer.
India’s oil demand growth is set to be just 350,000 barrels per day (b/d) in 2021, according to S&P Global Platts Analytics, given extreme consumption weakness in April and May, with much pinned on a recovery later this year.
