The new sellers of Russian oil, outside the ambit of western sanctions, include firms like Alghaf Marine, Redwood Global Supply, RusExport, Rusvietpetro, Neftisa, Dakkor, MorExport, Grewale Hub Fze, and East Implex Stream FZE, according to Kpler and Vortexa data accessed by Business Standard. The data is based on information about buyers and sellers provided in the bills of lading (BOLs) used in transactions, a Kpler official said.
Other UAE-based sellers of Russian crude include Primegrowth, Oryx, Augusta, Amur Investments, and Nexus (formerly Tejarineft), Energy Intelligence reported and Indian refiners confirmed.
The emergence of new sellers reflects the importance of the $50 billion Indo-Russian crude oil trade to producers and refiners of both nations, even as the discounts on offer on Russian oil expanded to the highest since 2023 and tripled from early 2025, senior refining sources said. Alternative supplies from West Asia and the US, while copious, are much more expensive, officials said.
While the US has basically targeted Russia's sales to Indian refiners with the latest sanctions, the European Union (EU) and China are bigger beneficiaries of discounted Russian commodity supplies, and have contributed hundreds of billions of dollars to the Russian war effort, according to leading Finnish energy think tank CREA. From the beginning of Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 to December 6, 2025, China paid Russia 288 billion euros ($334 billion) for imports of oil, gas and coal; the EU paid 217 billion euros; and India and Turkey paid 161 billion euros and 117 billion euros, respectively, according to CREA.
Kpler data as of early December showed Rosneft shipped 16 of 25 tracked cargoes that landed after November 21. Six of these were delivered to Reliance Industries’ Jamnagar refinery and five parcels headed to Nayara's Vadinar plant. State-run refiners, including Bharat Petroleum, Indian Oil, and Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) received the rest, according to Kpler data. Tracked cargo means goods being monitored electronically from origin to destination.
A Reliance Industries spokesperson said their understanding of the sanction regime meant that new orders should not be placed after October 22, when the US announced new sanctions, but “all pre-committed liftings of Russian crude oil as of October 22, 2025 are being honoured, considering all transport arrangements were already in place. The final such cargo was loaded on November 12”, according to a Reliance statement.
State oil companies are using new intermediaries, which are not sanctioned, to receive Russian supplies, said Sumit Ritolia, an analyst at Kpler. He said that in some cases, shipping data showed Rosneft as the seller but state refiners said that shipments came from non-sanctioned traders.
Dakkor delivered a cargo on November 27 to Hindustan Petroleum; RusExport and MorExport delivered cargoes to Indian Oil, HMEL, and Reliance, Kpler data showed. Grewale Hub Fze and East Implex Stream FZE shipped five cargoes to Rosneft-run Nayara Energy in the November 22-December 5 period, Vortexa data showed. November 21 was the last date for winding down Russian oil supplies from blacklisted Russian producers Rosneft and Lukoil.
US Office of Foreign Assets Control rules indicate that transactions must be completed by November 21, a view that three leading state-run refiners took in chats with Business Standard. Kremlin’s economic aide Maxim Oreshkin told Russia’s national broadcaster Channel 1 that Moscow “has long experience in evading sanctions, and if India is willing, we will find ways to supply crude oil”. These new intermediaries echo the Kremlin spokesperson’s stance, a senior refining source from a state refiner said.
“I think that the question is: Is the Trump administration going to actually take these sanctions and enforce them aggressively over the next six to 12 to 24 months,’’ Edward Fishman, who's been in the sanctions machinery inside the US State Department for many years, said in Carnegie Politika, a US think tank. “So, I worry that we may look back at this six months from now as a one-off where Trump was piqued with Putin, imposed sanctions on some big Russian oil companies. I remain skeptical that that's (sanctions enforcement) going to be a very high priority for Trump,” Fishman said.
Documentary evidence is key to sanction avoidance, a senior refining source said. And, as long as the new traders can provide proof in the BOL that Russian oil did not originate from sanctioned producers, Indian refiners are allowed to import the oil.
Russia has shipped 41 cargoes globally for January arrivals, with 11 parcels marked for India, of which three are headed to Nayara’s Vadinar refinery, Kpler data showed. This compares to India’s intake of 41 cargoes of Russian oil in October. Nayara Energy continues to import only Russian oil after being denied supplies by West Asia producers, industry sources said and shipping data showed. Some leading Indian state-run refiners have accumulated high inventories after buying oil from other sources since October to compensate for Russian reductions, a trader from a state refiner said. That has reduced appetite for Russian oil for January, but he expects volumes to pick up from February after Russia makes alternative arrangements and as Indian refiners ramp up throughput to the maximum before the financial year closing in March, he added.
Kpler’s Ritola said that he was surprised to find December loadings of Russian oil moving towards India at close to 1.4 million barrels per day, over twice what the market expected.
After accounting for around $10 per barrel in freight costs to India from Russian ports, and deducting trader margins, Indian refiners are still left with a healthy discount of $6-7 per barrel off Dated Brent oil, the highest since 2023, a senior trader from a state refiner said, explaining why Russian oil continues to be popular among Indian refiners despite several strictures.
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