Noisy US bought more oil from Russia compared to India

New Delhi, Apr 30: The United States has been pretty noisy about India buying oil from Russia. India's External Affairs Minister, Dr. S Jaishankar has on numerous occasions spoken out against this stating that the European nations are buying much more oil from Russia when compared to India.

A report by Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) showed an increase in Russian oil shipments to India and Egypt following the conflict in Ukraine.

Russia had proposed to the Indian government that they were willing to give a discount on crude as they battle sanctions that do not apply to energy, food and pharma products.

Private sector Reliance and Indian state run companies had bought an aggregate 30 million barrels of Russian crude since the conflict broke out. US President Joe Biden along with other European nations had criticised India for the same. India had however maintained that it will secure its interests while calling for an end to the war and advocating diplomacy.

The report said that in the two months since the war, 71 per cent of the 63 billion euro worth of fossil fuels-crude, oil products, piped gas, LNG and coal were exported by Russia to European countries with Germany being the highest buyer.

Oil shipments to India, Egypt and other unusual destinations for Russian exports have attracted a lot of attention and out data shows a clear pick up from a base of almost zero, the CREA report said.

The Deputy Secretary of the Russian Security Council Mikhail Popov had said that the US had increased imports of Russian oil by 43 per cent reaching 100,000 barrels per day as the war had entered the second month.

While the US expects every country to abide by the sanctions, several reports have revealed that Washington increased oil purchase from Russia.

The report said that Russia has earned 63 billion Euros or $66.5 billion from fossil fuel since the start of the war.