India’s oil imports from US drop as Russian crude dominates despite tariff pressures
India’s crude oil imports from the US fell sharply in August even as Russian barrels continued to dominate the country’s energy basket, according to shipping analytics firm Kpler. US crude shipments to India dropped 37% month-on-month and 38% year-on-year to just 230,000 barrels per day (bpd). At the same time, India imported 1.7 million bpd from Russia, up 6% from July, though still 4% lower than a year earlier. India’s overall crude imports stood at 4.5 million bpd in August, lower than the previous month. This, even as trade relations got worse with Washington, which imposed an additional 25% tariff on imports from India, which came into force on August 27, for alleged large-scale purchases of discounted Russian oil despite Western sanctions. India, however, refuted these allegations, maintaining that its crude buying strategy is driven by national energy security needs and cost competitiveness. Condemning the tariffs as “unfair and unreasonable”, India claimed that the US and Europe’s own imports from Russia.
Hydrogen trucks to run on these 10 highways in India
The Central government has identified 10 highway stretches in different parts of the country to facilitate the operation of trucks running on green hydrogen, Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Tuesday. The minister added that there will be stations to fill hydrogen in vehicles on these stretches. These hydrogen pumps will be set up by Indian Oil and Reliance Petroleum. Notably, Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland, and Volvo have already started making hydrogen-powered trucks. List Of Highways The identified highway stretches include Greater Noida-Delhi-Agra, Bhubaneshwar-Puri-Konark, Ahmedabad-Vadodara-Surat, Sahibabad-Faridabad-Delhi, Jamshedpur-Kalinganagar, Thiruvananthapuram-Kochi, Jamnagar-Ahmedabad, etc. Gadkari said that climate change is the biggest challenge facing India, adding that the country needs to improve its infrastructure to become a USD 5 trillion economy and the third largest economy in the world. While he also stressed that India has the potential to become the largest exporter of green hydrogen, the minister emphasised that by December this year, India’s logistics cost will come down to a single digit.
India to raise LNG import capacity by 27% to 66.7 million tons a year
India plans to raise its liquefied natural gas (LNG) import capacity by 27% to 66.7 million metric tons per year by 2030 as it is adding two more terminals, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri said in a post on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) on Tueaday. Currently, India is the world’s fourth-largest gas importer with eight LNG terminals comprising a combined capacity of 52.7 million tons a year. The country aims to raise the share of gas in its energy mix to 15% by 2030 from about 6% at present to cut its carbon footprint. In his post, Puri also shared that India will have 49 more LNG dispensing stations by December, in addition to 13 stations running currently. Having set a 2070 net-zero goal. India aims to raise its LNG dispensing stations for vehicles to 1,000.
Nikki Haley Asks India To Take Trump’s View On Russian Oil Seriously
“India must take Trump’s point over Russian oil seriously,” said Republican leader Nikki Haley, adding that New Delhi must work with the White House to find a solution, “sooner the better”. “Navigating issues like trade disagreements and Russian oil imports demands hard dialogue,” Haley posted on social media on Saturday (local time). She posted on X a portion of the opinion piece she wrote last week for Newsweek amid strain in ties between the two countries after President Donald Trump slapped 50% tariff on Indian goods. Haley has been facing criticism within her party for favouring India amid tariff tensions between the two countries. In her article Haley said, “Trump is right to target India’s massive Russian oil purchases, which are helping to fund Vladimir Putin’s brutal war against Ukraine.” However, she added that India must be treated like the “prized free and democratic partner that it is—not an adversary like China.”
How India’s Russian Oil Buys Stabilise Global Markets And How The West Quietly Benefits
Standing beside his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Moscow, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar was unambiguous. “We are not the biggest purchasers of Russian oil, that is China,” he said, pushing back against what he described as a “perplexing” narrative from the West. Addressing media questions about US tariffs on Indian goods, Jaishankar defended India’s decision to import discounted crude from Russia as one driven by national interest, and more importantly, one that helped stabilise the global energy market. “We are a country where the Americans have said for the last few years that we should do everything to stabilise the world energy market, including buying oil from Russia,” Jaishankar stated, clearly suggesting that India was now being unfairly penalised for doing exactly what the West had informally endorsed. The comments come at a time when India finds itself at the centre of a geopolitical energy debate, triggered by Washington’s decision to double tariffs on Indian goods, now totalling 50 per cent, with an additional 25 per cent penalty imposed specifically over energy trade with Russia. The premise behind the penalty, that India is the “largest buyer” of Russian oil and thus fuelling Moscow’s war chest, has been repeatedly contested by New Delhi. Jaishankar, in Moscow,laid out the data: India is not the top importer of Russian oil (that would be China), not the biggest buyer of Russian LNG (that would be the EU), and not even the trade partner with the sharpest post-2022 surge in volume with Moscow.
Hydrocarbon hunt: India’s oil and gas churn is high risk, high return
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement on Independence Day of Samudra Manthan, a mission to accelerate domestic oil and gas exploration, could not have come at a more pressing hour for India. Global geopolitical trends and trade turmoil have turned the spotlight on measures to moderate the outflow of dollars through our single largest drain: oil and gas imports. We ship in close to nine-tenths of the crude barrels we need, even as local sales of petroleum products are growing at a 6-7% annual clip. Home output of crude, which has been unable to keep pace, must rise sharply if we are to move the needle on self-reliance.
CBG, LNG to drive India’s gas sector growth in next five years, says IGL’s Sanjeev Bhatia
City gas companies see compressed biogas (CBG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) as the next big growth drivers in India’s clean energy transition, with the two sectors expected to “flourish in the next five to ten years,” Indraprastha Gas Limited (IGL) Executive Director Sanjeev Bhatia said at the PHDCCI Global Summit on Sustainability 2025. Speaking at the session on hard-to-abate sectors, Bhatia said that while India’s natural gas share in the energy mix is targeted to rise from 6.5 per cent to 15 per cent by 2030, domestic production is not keeping pace with demand, making alternatives like CBG critical. “The government has already mandated city gas distributors to invest in compressed biogas plants. IGL has been tasked to set up at least 10 such facilities, with one plant at Narela in Delhi expected to begin operations by October. This unit will produce four tonnes of gas per day from municipal solid waste,” he said. On LNG, Bhatia underlined the massive potential in India’s transport sector, comparing India’s 700 LNG-fuelled trucks to China’s 0.6 million. “If we can even convert a fraction of diesel trucks to LNG, pollution can be cut by 30 per cent,” he said.
Oil Prices Slide Further on Prospect of Peace in Ukraine
Crude oil prices declined today after the end of the Trump-Zelensky talks on Monday, in anticipation of trilateral talks that could result in a peace deal. That would likely also result in the lifting of sanctions on Russian crude, making more of its available on global markets. At the time of writing, Brent crude was trading at $66.20 per barrel and West Texas Intermediate was changing hands for $62.95 per barrel, after inching higher on Monday as the Ukrainian president arrived at the White House for talks with Trump. “Betting markets aren’t overly convinced that we’ll see a ceasefire before the end of the year,” ING commodity analysts said in a note following the meeting. Indeed, the surrender of the Donbass, most of which is already under Russian control, remains a no-no for Zelensky, it appears, while it also remains a hard condition for Russia. This mars the prospect of peace quite considerably unless both sides are willing to make concessions. “Polymarkets is showing a 38% chance of a ceasefire, well below the peak of 78% seen in March. The modest price action in the oil market this morning appears to fit with this view,” ING’s Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey also wrote. Another related issue is the additional tariff that President Trump said he would impose on India as punishment for its purchases of Russian crude. The tariff comes into effect at the end of August. This means that negotiators from the U.S., Russia, and Ukraine have little time to make a deal that would avoid considerable disruption on world oil markets. An additional, if not too substantial, factor that limited the oil price slide was a Ukrainian attack on the Druzhba pipeline, which carries Russian crude to Hungary and Slovakia. The rate of deliveries is about 200,000 barrels daily.
What will be price of petrol, diesel if India stops importing oil from Russia
In a significant update amid the trade talks between India and the US and Donald Trump imposing an additional 25% tariff on India, taking the total tariff to 50% due to India’s continued crude oil purchase from Russia, reports are now talking about the inflationary impact if India stops buying oil from Russia. Notably, Russia become India’s largest oil supplier since the Russia-Ukraine war and is currently supplying 35% to 40% of India’s oil needs. Why Donald Trump imposed tariffs on India? In a massive action against India, the United States, under the leadership of Donald Trump imposed tariffs on India as India continued to purchase crude oil from Russia. In response to the move, India clarified its stand and said that it buys Russian oil because Europe stopped sourcing from Moscow. How much loss will India face if Russia cuts imports? As per experts, if India cuts Russian import of crude oil to India, India will have to rely more on costlier oil from West Asia, Africa, the US, and Latin America, which will pose technical, economic, and strategic challenges. More notably, the shifting could raise annual costs by Rs 250 – 400 billion for Indian refiners, which would ultimately hit the budgets of Indian consumers. Earlier, a SBI report has also indicated that the fuel bill might increase by USD 9 billion in FY26 and USD 11.7 billion in FY27 if Russia cuts its crude oil imports to India. However, the exact price in increase of Petrol and diesel cannot be predicted as it depends on several others factors including government taxes.
What has been the impact of ethanol blending
E20 petrol, which contains 20% ethanol and is being sold by Indian oil refiners, has been much in the news lately. India has achieved its target to blend 20% ethanol per litre of fuel five years ahead of the target under the National Policy on Biofuels. Ethanol blending in India rose from just 1.5% in 2014 to 20% in 2025, backed by the government’s strong fiscal incentives to the sugarcane industry. While the government says ethanol blending achieves a range of goals such as cutting greenhouse gas emissions, bolstering farmers’ incomes and reducing India’s oil import bill, its benefits to the environment require closer scrutiny. How are vehicle owners reacting to this change? Vehicles sold in India from 2023 come with E20 stickers, indicating compatibility with 20% ethanol blended petrol. Additionally, manufacturers have addressed the concerns of those who own older vehicles. Hero Motocrop says in its website, “The material composition such as rubbers, elastomers and plastic components that are directly exposed to fuel also need to be changed to E20 compatible materials.” However, according to LocalCircles, two in three petrol vehicle owners are against the E20 mandate. Only 12% of the 36,000 people surveyed across 315 districts are in favour of the switch. Critics cited a drop in mileage and increased maintenance costs. The survey urged the Union government to allow consumers to choose the type of fuel they want. While the Centre admitted to a “marginal drop” in engine efficiency, it said this “can be further minimised through improved engine tuning and use of E20-compatible materials.” Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has called the consumer angst a “vilification campaign” facilitated by “vested, economic interests”. While the Union government attempts to defend its E20 policy, its own think tank, the NITI Aayog, has urged the government “to compensate the consumers for a drop in efficiency from ethanol blended fuels”, by way of “tax incentives on E10 and E20 fuel”. According to the Minister, “since 2014-15 India has already saved more than ₹1400 billion in foreign exchange through petrol substitution.” But has the benefit been passed to the end consumer? An analysis by The Hindu showed that Coal India Ltd, Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL), and Gas Authority of India Ltd collectively contributed ₹1270 billion, or 42.3% of the total ₹3000 billion dividends the Union government received from non-banking Public Sector Undertaking (PSUs) between 2020-21 and 2024-25. IOC and BPCL together saw a 255% rise in their dividend payouts since 2022-23 and a 65% decrease in oil prices. However, the two PSUs only passed on a 2% decrease in petrol prices to the public. What about the impact on agriculture? Sugarcane-based ethanol supply has grown from 400 million litres in FY14 to nearly 6.70 billion litres, derived from about 9% of total sugar output, in FY24. The Union government says it has paid “over ₹1200 billion to farmers” since FY15. But how environmentally friendly is India’s dependence on sugarcane for ethanol? About 60-70 tonnes of water is required to cultivate one tonne of sugarcane. Many sugarcane growing regions in India do not receive the 1,500 to 3,000 millimetre rainfall that is necessary for the crop’s optimal growth. This leads to groundwater extraction and unsustainable irrigation methods. A 2023 Central Groundwater Board report says that sugarcane growing districts in Maharashtra extract more groundwater than nearby regions. Distress among sugarcane growers in that State has been widely reported. Unsustainable agriculture practices accelerate land degradation. The Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas of India 2021 found that almost 30% of India’s land is degraded. The water intensive nature of sugarcane and the impact on ground water reserves at a time of extreme weather has been absent from the discussion on ethanol-blended petrol.