A wild swing in international oil prices in 2022 brought back indirect fuel subsidies in India in a setback to reforms, but the nation won at crude diplomacy as it refused to succumb to western pressures and continued to buy oil from the cheapest available source. International oil prices have been turbulent in the last couple of years. It dipped into the negative zone at the start of the pandemic in 2020 and swung wildly in 2022 — climbing to a 14-year high of nearly USD 140 per barrel in March 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine, before sliding on weaker demand from top importer China and worries of an economic contraction.
