Datanomics: India gets Russian cushion as Israel-Iran clash heats up oil

Israel’s attacks on Iran have led to a surge in international crude oil prices. The conflict is expected to escalate in the coming days, putting further strain on global oil supplies in the restive West Asian region and making crude oil expensive. This can hamper India’s energy security, given that India imports more than 85 per cent of its crude oil requirements, but only to an extent, since the country has successfully expanded its oil import sources. 

Crude oil imports decline

The share of India’s crude oil imports in its total import value has declined during seven years since April 2018, although there have been fluctuations.  

Indian crude oil prices remain near global average

Prices of the Indian basket of crude oil have been near average global crude prices for seven years since FY19  

Import share from West Asia dips, Russia rises

After Russia faced sanctions owing to its war with Ukraine, it started selling its crude oil at discounted prices. This led to a surge in the share of Russia in India’s crude oil imports in recent years. On the other hand, share of crude oil imports from West Asia dipped.