The Indian government is not under any pressure to reduce oil imports from Russia, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri told CNN on Monday.
“We don’t feel any pressure,” the minister said. “[Narendra] Modi’s government doesn’t feel the pressure. We are the fifth largest economy in the world.”
To a question on whether there was a moral conflict in buying oil from Russia amid the Ukraine conflict, Puri said: “Absolutely none.” He added that it is not the government, but oil companies that purchase energy from other countries.
“We have a moral duty towards our consumers and we have to ensure that they are supplied with petrol, diesel,” the minister said.
Puri said that at the end of the financial year 2021-’22, India’s imports from Russia only accounted for 0.2% of the total energy imports. “We only brought a quarter of oil of what Europe buys in one afternoon,” he said.
The minister added that last month, Iraq was the largest supplier of oil to India.
New Delhi has increased its oil imports from Moscow significantly since the Russia-Ukraine conflict started in February. Last month, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said that India’s crude oil shipments from Russia have risen to 12% from about 2% in February.
On multiple occasions since the Russia-Ukraine conflict started, the United States has said that it was not in India’s interest to increase energy imports from Russia.
However, on October 7, Puri said that no country had told India to stop buying oil from Moscow. “India will buy oil from wherever it has to for the simple reason that this kind of a discussion cannot be taken to the consuming population of India,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Union minister on Monday also urged the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to bear in mind the impact of their decision to cut oil production on consumers, Reuters reported.
“It is entirely up to the producers to determine how much they want to produce and what price they want to sell,” he said. “They have to factor in what’s happening in the world, what the impact of their decisions will be.”
Puri also said that India depends on imports for 85% of its oil requirements, and that the country accounts for about 5% of global oil consumption.
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