India has stepped up its buying of Russian crude oil in January from already record levels of the previous month. And, astonishingly, the United States has emerged as the biggest buyer for the refined products, despite Washington’s entreaties to the rest of the world not to buy Russian fuel.
India’s purchases of Russian crude oil have shot up to 1.7 million barrels per day (bpd) in January which is a steep rise from 1.2 million bpd in December 2022– which was even then record-level buying.
“People were asking where all the Russian Urals crude could go if Europe wasn’t buying. When India took 1.2 million bpd in December, they said surely India cannot do more. And in January, it is 1.7 million bpd,” says Viktor Katona, lead crude analyst at Kpler, a data and analytics firm.
