Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharam said that India has started buying the flagship Urals grade crude oil from Russia at a heavy discount of $35 per barrel.
She added that the country had received an oil supply for three to four days. Further, the Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Hardeep Singh Puri, is working on a plan to source more oil.
In her defense, she said, “I would put my national interest first and my energy security first. And if there is fuel available at a discount. Why shouldn’t I buy it?”
On the other hand, India’s External Affairs Miniter, S. Jaishankar, while addressing the press along with UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss in New Delhi, said that the talks of sanctions “looks like a campaign.”
He underscored, “If you look at the major buyers of oil and gas from Russia. I think you will find most of them are in Europe. We ourselves get the bulk of our energy supplies from the Middle East, about 7.5-8 percent of our oil from the US in the past, may be less than a percent from Russia.”
Further defending India’s rationale for buying oil from Russia, he said, “When oil prices go up, I think it’s natural for countries to go out into the market and look for what are good deals for them. But I’m pretty sure if we wait for two or three months and actually look at who are the big buyers of Russian gas and oil, I suspect the list won’t be very different from what it is now. And I suspect we won’t be at the top 10 of that list.”