India, the world’s third-largest oil importer, hopes to turn the current global oil challenges of the Ukraine crisis into an opportunity to secure affordable energy, Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Thursday, a day after the Union European Union disagreed on a Russian oil price cap.
India, which used to buy Russian oil due to costly logistics rarely, has become Russia’s second-biggest oil customer after China, as some Western entities rebuffed purchases from Moscow after the invasion of Ukraine in February.
“Right now, the concern is not where we will get energy from,” Puri told a Times Now summit. “It’s a global challenge, but we have it, and we will turn it into an opportunity. And I don’t foresee difficulties acquiring energy and securing it at affordable prices.”
The United States has stopped buying Russian energy, and European nations will halt imports of Russian crude and refined products starting December 5 and February 5, respectively.
The Group of Seven nations, including the United States, the European Union and Australia, plan to implement a probable price cap of $65 to $70 per barrel on exports of Russian seaborne oil from 5 January. december.
Some Indian refiners are already getting Russian oil at or near peak price levels.
The West has exempted Russian oil supplies via pipelines to Hungary and China and exports from the Sakhalin-2 projects to Japan. “Then the question arises as to who is going to get this price cap if there are these three big exemptions,” Puri said, noting that the mechanism is aimed at supplies to India.
Puri, however, said he was not concerned about disruption to oil supplies post-Dec. 5, adding that India has been rapidly diversifying its crude sources and could buy more oil from the United States, Guyana and other nations in the coming years.