Minister of Oil and Gas of India: We supply our oil from wherever it is needed
According to IRNA’s Hindustan Times report on Saturday, “Hardeep Singh Puri”, the Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas of India, said: “No one has ordered India to stop buying oil from Russia.”
After his bilateral meeting in Washington, he said: The Indian government has a moral duty to provide energy to its citizens and will continue to buy oil from wherever it is needed, because this type of discussion cannot be brought to the consumer population.
In an interview with Jennifer Granholm, the US Secretary of Energy, he said: “If you are transparent about your policy, it means that you believe in energy security and the affordability of energy, regardless of where you have to buy energy from sources.” , you will buy.
Indian oil minister added: There has been a rather wrong idea about buying energy from Russia. Usually what Europe buys in one afternoon is as much as we buy in a three month period. We ended the fiscal year with a total of 0.2% of oil imports from Russia.
Hardeep Singh Puri said: The conflict in Ukraine took place in February (Bahan 1400), and in the following months, imports from Russia increased significantly as a result of the shift in the market, but after that, other oil and gas suppliers also entered. were operated In the following months, another supplier from the Middle East took second place, and Saudi Arabia was always the number one exporter to India.
He continued: Most people do not know how the oil business is done. If I have to buy crude oil from, say, a very distant location, where the price of an icebreaker has to be factored into the trades, it doesn’t work. It is much easier to buy from a nearby point, in the Persian Gulf, the oil markets are more suitable for us.
Indian Foreign Minister Subranyam Jaishenkar recently said: “Prime Minister Modi’s advice on this matter was to do the best for the Indian nation, and because of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the price of petrol doubled.” We were under pressure as to where to buy the oil, but the Prime Minister of India and the government were of the opinion that we should do what is best for our nation.
Puri also said about the OPEC+ (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) decision to cut oil production by two million barrels per day: India can manage the situation. The amount of energy supplied by producers and suppliers matches and balances the demand in the market, market forces are at play and the amount of energy supplied affects the level of prices.
According to IRNA, there were speculations about Iran’s request from India to start buying oil and ignore unilateral US sanctions. Similar to the action that this country has taken in buying oil from Russia despite the sanctions imposed by the United States and Western countries against Moscow.
India has stopped buying oil from Iran since May 2019 after the imposition of sanctions by former US President Donald Trump, which was an unprecedented move. Before the imposition of unilateral US sanctions, India was the second largest buyer of Iranian oil after China.
According to Indian officials, Delhi took this decision due to pressure from Washington after the Donald Trump administration unilaterally withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement and imposed harsh sanctions on Iran.
Despite this, India continues to buy oil from Russia in spite of similar US sanctions against this country and Iran. Sanctions following Russia’s military attack on Ukraine, even in some cases by the United States and the European Union, have been imposed on Moscow more stringently than the sanctions on Iran.
In fact, India’s oil purchase from Russia has increased by about 50 times since April 2022, and it has become one of the top 10 oil suppliers of this country.