President Donald Trump claimed yesterday Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has assured him that India will stop purchasing oil from Russia, something New Delhi has yet to confirm. Two months ago, Washington imposed 25% tariffs on India over those oil imports. If true, this would mark a seismic shift for the global tanker trades. India has been one of Moscow’s largest buyers of discounted crude, especially since Western sanctions pushed buyers to retrench. “If India does not buy oil, it makes it [ending the Russia-Ukraine war] easier. They have assured me that within a short period of time, they will not be buying oil from Russia, and they will go back to Russia after the war is over,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office yesterday, going on to say that he would try and persuade China to follow suit. Later on the same day, Trump’s finance secretary said that the US was also pressuring Japan to stop all imports of Russian oil as well. Indian government officials have hinted recently that as part of ongoing trade talks with Washington, they are willing to take considerable volumes of US oil imports. While not getting into the specifics of what has been discussed between Trump and Modi, a spokesperson for India’s Ministry of External Affairs said today, “India is a significant importer of oil and gas. It has been our consistent priority to safeguard the interests of the Indian consumer in a volatile energy scenario. Our import policies are guided entirely by this objective.” The spokesperson added: “Where the US is concerned, we have for many years sought to expand our energy procurement. This has steadily progressed in the last decade. The current administration has shown interest in deepening energy cooperation with India. Discussions are ongoing.” Satellite data from AXS Marine shows current Indian crude imports from Russia remain elevated at 1.4m barrels per day accounting for 29% of total imports. Crude imports from the Americas stand at 0.4m barrels per day (8%), while crude from the Middle East stand at 2.6m barrels per day (53%). Shipping analysts at Swedish bank SEB suggested today that a shift away from Russian crude to India would be beneficial for the tanker market, supporting the arbitrage of Atlantic barrels to Asian buyers. googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1_95_0_1_2'); }); TagsIndia Russia United States