NEW DELHI: India’s decision to purchase Russian oil during global market instability helped avert potential global price surges, according to Union petroleum and natural gas minister Hardeep Singh Puri.
In a conversation with CNN’s Becky Anderson at ADIPEC in Abu Dhabi on Thursday, Puri said that global oil prices could have reached 200 dollars had India not purchased Russian oil.
Oil remains crucial to global energy requirements for the foreseeable future, he indicated.
“Earlier I said I hope there will be a reduction in oil price. Today I’m more confident that there will be,” Puri told CNN.
“By 2026, when more energy is available in the market, As a student of the situation, I think that the likelihood of prices remaining stable and coming down are higher”, he added.
Addressing India’s October reduction in Russian oil imports by approximately 10 per cent, Puri attributed this to competitive market rates. “There are other people willing to supply at the same competitive rate because the OPEC position is they don’t deal with price. There’s healthy competition going on. If you don’t get it from one, you get it from someone else”, he explained.
Regarding strategic implications, Puri clarified: “These are oil decisions taken in the marketplace. When we face February 22 there was 13 million barrels of Russian oil on the market suddenly if that oil had gone off the market and India had decided to shift its 5 million barrels to say suppliers in the Gulf, price of oil would have gone up to 200 a barrel. So I think we did everybody a favour”.
He noted that advancements in green hydrogen and cleaner energy transition would alter global oil demand patterns within five years.
On his X platform, Puri stated: “India did the entire world a favour by buying Russian oil because if we had not done so, the global oil prices would have skyrocketed to $200/barrel. Russian oil was never under any sanctions and there was only a price cap, which Indian entities also followed.”
He criticised “ill informed commentators” who suggested restrictions on India whilst European and Asian nations continued significant energy purchases from Russia.
“Let us not forget that while some ill informed commentators talked about putting restrictions on India, many other European and Asian nations bought much more crude oil, diesel, LNG, rare earth minerals worth billions of dollars from Russia. We will continue to buy energy from whoever offers the best rates to our oil companies,” Puri wrote.
He emphasised: “We need to ensure steady availability, affordability and sustainability of energy for our 7 crore citizens who visit a petrol pump everyday. That’s our top priority. India is the only major consumer where fuel prices has come down significantly in the last three years despite unprecedented global price increases in other nations”.
According to the International Energy Agency 2024, India ranks as the world’s third-largest oil consumer.