Russia increased its share in Indian crude oil imports to nearly 40% in April from 30% in March, closing in on its all-time peak of 42% last July, as higher global oil prices pushed Indian refiners to increase intake of discounted Russian barrels to reduce their average crude purchase cost.
Indian refiners imported 1.78 million barrels a day (mb/d) of crude oil from Russia in April, up 19% from March, according to energy cargo tracker Vortexa. This exceeded China’s import of 1.27 mb/d and Europe’s 396,000 barrels per day (bp/d) of seaborne Russian crude in April.
