India's crude oil imports from Russia dropped in July and could be headed to a more significant decline in August, to the lowest since January this year, according to Kpler, as Russia has pledged to reduce its oil exports this month.
In July, crude imports from Russia into India, the world's third-largest oil importer, dropped to 2.09 million barrels per day (bpd), down from 2.11 million bpd in the previous month, Viktor Katona, head of crude analysis at Kpler, has told Bloomberg.
This month, India's crude oil imports could further decline and fall to 1.6 million bpd, Katona added. If the projection is correct, India's imports of Russian oil in August could drop to their lowest level since January 2023.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine early last year, India has turned from a marginal buyer of Russian crude to the most important market for Moscow's oil alongside China. Indian refiners, not complying with the G7 price cap and looking for cheap opportunistic purchases, have snapped up many of the Russian Urals cargoes, which used to go to northwest Europe before the EU embargo.
In July, Indian imports of the Urals grade hit a record-high of 1.6 million bpd, according to estimates by Kpler.
Russia has pledged to cut exports by 500,000 bpd in August, and signs emerged in July that its seaborne shipments are falling.
Indian imports of Russian oil could rebound in October to what could be a record 2.2 million bpd, per estimates by Kpler's Katona.
Going forward, India may soon hit its limits on imports of Russian crude, due to infrastructure constraints and the need to keep good trade relations with other crude oil suppliers, according to analysts at Kpler.
Last month, some analysts said that India may have already reached its peak crude imports from Russia.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More
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