By Nidhi Verma
NEW DELHI (Reuters) -Indian state refiners have started making enquiries with trading firms about purchases of Russia’s Urals crude oil as discounts widen, three people with knowledge of the matter said on Thursday, ahead of a high-profile meeting of U.S. and Russian leaders on Friday.
Indian state refiners – Indian Oil Corp, Hindustan Petroleum Corp, Bharat Petroleum Corp and Mangalore Refinery Petrochemical Ltd – paused Russian oil purchases last month as discounts narrowed.
The state refiners, which account for more than 60% of India’s 5.2 million barrels per day of refining capacity, buy Russian oil on a delivered basis.
Spot discounts for Russian Urals crude delivered to India in October have widened to about $2.70 per barrel from $1-$1.50 per barrel in late July, the sources said. The wider discount makes delivery of Urals cheaper than it was in July.
India became the largest customer of Russian seaborne oil from 2022, after Western countries shunned Russian oil and imposed sanctions on Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.
U.S. President Donald Trump last month threatened sanctions on buyers of Russian exports unless Russia agrees to a peace deal with Ukraine. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will discuss a possible deal to end the war in Ukraine when they meet on Friday in Alaska.
“We will wait for the outcome of Trump-Putin talks that will give us some indications,” one of the sources said.
State-run Bharat Petroleum Corp aims to continue using Russian oil to meet up to 35% of its processing needs if there are no new sanctions, Vetsa Ramakrishna Gupta, its finance head, told an analyst call on Thursday.
BPCL’s Russian oil purchases slowed in July as discounts narrowed, he added.
Indian state refiners have turned to spot purchases from countries including Brazil, West Africa, and the United States to replace lower Russian oil supplies. [O/TEND] [CRU/TENDA]
Russian Urals crude is priced at a discount to Brent crude oil, a widely used oil pricing benchmark.
Russian oil accounts for more than a third of India’s overall purchases. Unlike state refiners, private companies, including Reliance Industries and Nayara Energy, have term contracts to buy Russian oil.
(Reporting by Nidhi Verma; Editing by Florence Tan, Tomasz Janowski and Jane Merriman)
