India’s Russian oil imports dropped 8.4% amid reduced discounts, tighter supply.
Refiners increased oil purchases from the Middle East and the U.S.
U.S. linked lower tariffs, trade progress to reduced Russian crude imports.
Russia’s share in India’s oil imports fell, while OPEC’s rose.
India’s Russian oil imports between the months of April and September fell 8.4% on year due to narrower discounts and tighter supplies with refiners now seeking more oil from the Middle East and the United States, trade sources and shipping data stated.
Currently, India is under pressure from Washington as the latter has doubled tariffs on Indian goods as a punishing move to reduce Russian oil imports. According to White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, India's purchases of Russian crude were funding Moscow's war in Ukraine.
Shipping data obtained from trade sources, quoted by Reuters point out that a refiner in India shipped in 1.75 million barrels per day of Russian oil in the first half of this fiscal year that began on April 1. The same data pointed out that September's volume was flat versus August at 1.6 million bpd, down 14.2% from the same month a year ago.
Additionally, private refiner Reliance Industries Ltd and Nayara Energy boosted imports in September while state refiners' purchases fell.
As per U.S. trade negotiators, curbing purchases of Russian oil is crucial to reducing India's tariff rate and sealing a trade deal. On the other hand, India's U.S. crude imports in April-September rose 6.8% on year to about 213,000 bpd.
Currently, India's higher purchase of U.S. energy products is linked to the outcome of trade negotiations between the two countries, a government source said last week, as quoted by Reuters.
U.S. trade secretary Scott Bessent also stated that India would rebalance its crude purchases by buying more U.S. oil and less Russian oil.
On an overall basis, India shipped in about 4.88 million bpd of oil in September, falling by 1% from August but up about 3.5% from the same month a year ago, the data revealed.
In addition to that, Russia's share in India's overall imports in the April-September period declined to about 36% from 40%, while that of the U.S. rose marginally.
The share of Middle Eastern oil in six months to September 2025 in overall imports rose to 45% from 42%, lifting the share of the OPEC nations to 49% from 45%, the data showed.
