Russian oil export to India witnessed a sharp decline after the US sanctioned two of Moscow’s biggest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, last month over the Russia-Ukraine war, provisional tanker data shows.
Although industry experts believe it is too early to gauge the impact and a clearer picture would emerge in a month or two, refiners have been wary of Washington’s latest sanctions, which will take effect on November 21.
The sanctions on the oil giants are the first imposed against Russia since Trump returned to the White House and aim to cut key revenues from oil sales for Russia. “Now is the time to stop the killing and for an immediate ceasefire,” Scott Bessent said at the time of announcing the sanctions.
Have oil imports to India gone down?
In the week ending October 27, Russia’s crude oil exports to India averaged 1.19 million barrels per day (bpd), a sharp drop from 1.95 million bpd recorded over the previous two weeks, according to provisional vessel-tracking data from global commodity analytics firm Kpler.
The decline was largely driven by lower shipments from Rosneft and Lukoil, which together account for more than half of Russia’s oil output and exports, and previously supplied over two-thirds of India’s Russian oil imports.
Exports from Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil producer, fell to 0.81 million bpd in the week to October 27, down from 1.41 million bpd the week before. Lukoil recorded no shipments to India during the same period, compared with 0.24 million bpd in the previous week.
