Indian oil companies are yet to receive dividends worth $300 million to $400 million from Russia since the war broke out between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022, a senior petroleum ministry official said.
Indian companies including ONGC, Oil India, BPCL and Indian Oil have stakes in Russian oil and gas projects for which they have not received dividends due to Western sanctions imposed on Moscow.
The government is negotiating a way to resolve the issue, the official said. The issue in payments of dividend to Indian companies arises due to the unavailability of banking channels after Russia was removed from the SWIFT global payment system by the US.
Since the US and the EU has imposed sanctions on Moscow, Russia has become the one of the largest crude oil suppliers to India.
The share of Russian crude in India’s oil import has risen from 0.2 percent in January 2022 to over 30 percent in March 2023. This comes as Russia is diverting the supply of its crude oil to Asian countries, especially India and China, and providing it at a discounted price.
For the month of March, Russia was the top supplier of crude oil to India providing 1.64 million barrels per day (bpd), surpassing traditional suppliers such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq.