A very large buyer is found for Russian oil

Alexey Belogoryev, Deputy Principal Director on Energy Studies at the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented to the Expert publication on a possible increase in Russian oil supplies to India.

Alexei Belogoriev noted in an interview with an Expert correspondent that India has long been considered by Russian oil companies as one of the promising, "however, practically undeveloped and hard-to-reach in terms of complex logistics and price competition," sales markets.

“According to the IEA forecast (October 2021), India’s share in world consumption by 2030 will increase to 7% from 5.3% (OPEC data) in 2021. At the same time, the absolute increase in consumption (+2.8 million barrels per day) will be higher than in China and any other country,” said Alexey Belogoryev.

In his opinion, the recent increase in supplies to India was due to the presence of high discounts on Russian grades of oil. For example, in March 2022, the loading of Russian oil to India, according to the IEA, increased to 310,000 barrels per day, although back in February it was almost zero.

“Therefore, it is not necessary to talk about an equivalent alternative to exports to Western countries. The redirection of supplies to India and a number of other developing countries is a forced measure, accompanied by a sharp decrease in the margin of exports,” Alexey Belogoryev believes.

Another problem for expanding oil cooperation between Russia and India may be the US sanctions, to which New Delhi is much more sensitive than Beijing.