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India’s fuel exports to Europe have soared this year to make India the biggest exporter of refined oil products to the EU as Indian refiners are capitalizing on a loophole in the EU sanctions against Russia, Finland-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) said in its monthly analysis.
Russia has now become India’s single largest crude oil supplier. Indian refiners are processing cheap Russian oil and exporting the petroleum products to the EU, whose sanctions – while prohibiting imports of crude and refined products directly from Russia – do not specify bans for the origin of the crude processed by non-Russian exporters of fuels to the EU.
“Capitalising on the refining loophole, India has now become the biggest exporter of oil products to the EU,” CREA’s analysts said in their monthly snapshot of the Russian energy trade.
During the first nine months of the year, exports to the EU from the Jamnagar, Vadinar, and new Mangalore refineries in India — which are increasingly reliant on Russian crude — jumped by 58% compared to the same period of 2023, according to data collected by the CREA.
The surge in EU imports of fuel from India is “further amplifying the fact that EU Member States continued imports are expanding the refining loophole, and Russian revenues from crude exports to third countries,” the center said.
As India is raising its fuel exports to the EU, it also continues to boost imports of Russian crude oil as Russia continues to be the single largest crude supplier to the world’s third-biggest oil importer.
In September, India was estimated to have imported about 1.9 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude from Russia—which accounted for around two-fifths of India’s total September crude oil imports of about 4.7 million bpd, according to tanker data from industry sources reported by Reuters.
India will not change its energy policy to buy oil and gas at the lowest possible price and will continue to purchase cheaper Russian crude supply, Indian Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri told Reuters earlier this year.
“If an entity is not under sanctions, there is no question I will buy from the cheapest supplier,” the minister said.
