Union Minister Hardeep Puri's Statement on Fuel Rates

The Central Government may decrease fuel prices if the global prices of crude oil continue to remain stable and if oil companies perform well in the next quarter. Hardeep Singh Puri, the Petroleum Minister, stated that there has been no increase in oil prices since April 2022 and assured that consumers will not face any difficulties.

During a press conference at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi to commemorate the nine years of the Modi government, Puri mentioned that if the international cost of crude oil remains steady and the oil companies have a good next quarter, they will consider reducing the prices of petrol and diesel.

In May, India imported a significant amount of inexpensive oil from Russia, surpassing the combined oil purchases from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the UAE, and the US. This information comes from industry data which indicates that India received 1.96 million barrels per day from Russia in May, marking a 15% increase compared to the previous record in April. Russia now accounts for approximately 42% of India's total crude oil imports, representing the highest share from an individual country in recent years. This increase in Russian imports has come at the expense of traditional suppliers in the Middle East, with shipments from Saudi Arabia reaching their lowest level since February 2021.

In May, OPEC's share in India's oil imports dropped to an all-time low of 39%. Previously, OPEC, primarily comprising Middle Eastern and African countries, used to account for up to 90% of India's crude oil imports. However, this share has been declining since Russian oil became available at a discounted price following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in February of the previous year.

For eight consecutive months, Russia has remained the largest supplier of crude oil to India, constituting 42% of all oil imports. The imports from Russia have surpassed the combined purchases from Iraq and Saudi Arabia, which were India's primary suppliers in the past decade, as well as the UAE and the US. In May, Iraq supplied 0.83 million barrels per day of oil, while the UAE shipped 203,000 barrels per day. The data also shows that 138,000 barrels per day were sourced from the US.

Before the Russia-Ukraine conflict in February 2022, Russia had less than a 1% market share in India's import basket. However, it has now risen to a 42% share, with India importing 1.96 million barrels per day from Russia in May. OPEC supplied 1.8 million barrels per day out of the 4.7 million barrels per day imported by India in May, a decrease from the 2.1 million barrels per day imported in April.

Indian refiners have not historically purchased Russian oil due to high freight costs. However, they are now taking advantage of the discounted Russian cargo, as some Western nations rejected it following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. The purchases from Russia in May were more than double the amount bought from Iraq, which had been India's top oil supplier since 2017-18, pushing Saudi Arabia to the third spot. In April, the average cost of Russian crude, including freight costs, landed in India at USD 68.21 per barrel, the lowest level since the Ukraine conflict. The average cost of Saudi Arabian crude was USD 86.96 per barrel, while Iraqi oil was priced at USD 77.77 per barrel.

The import price for May has not yet been released. Russia is selling record amounts of crude oil to India to compensate for the gap in its energy exports caused by the European Union's ban on imports starting from December.

According to Vortexa, India imported only 68,600 barrels per day of oil from Russia in March 2022.