Indian refineries ramp up Russian crude purchases
Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries and Nayara Energy have bought 45% of the Urals crude imported into the country. The South Asian nation has bought 231 million barrels of Urals crude this year, according to the report. Both Reliance and Nayara's Russian oil purchases witnessed a significant jump in 2025, Bloomberg added.
Reliance Group has become the world's largest buyer of Russian oil this year, buying 77 million barrels of Urals crude in 2025, according to the report. The group, which is owned by Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, signed a ten-year deal with Rosneft in December 2024 for 500,000 barrels of crude per day (bpd), worth around $13 billion annually, marking the largest energy deal between Moscow and New Delhi.
Nayara has part-Russian ownership. In 2017, Rosneft Group led a consortium to buy a 98% stake in Essar Oil for $12.9 billion. The company was later restructured as Nayara Energy, with Rosneft keeping a 49.13% stake. Around 72% of its oil imports consisted of Russian crude, a significant increase from 27% just three years ago, Bloomberg said.
Russia has been India's largest oil supplier since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. In May, India's imports of Russian crude oil reached around 1.8 million bpd, the highest level in ten months, Reuters reported, citing Kpler data. The surge in imports in May has helped Moscow solidify its position as a major oil supplier to the world's most populous country.
Industry watchers attribute India's frenetic buying of Russian crude to the volatile situation in the Middle East. Tehran, which controls the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil shipping route which accounts for 20% of the global oil supply, threatened to close the waterway in the wake of the US attacks on three of its nuclear installations on Sunday.
New Delhi has said it would be able to offset the effects of the Strait of Hormuz being closed off.
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