Indian oil refiners can do without Russian supplies

BUT THE SHIFT WOULD INVOLVE MAJOR TRADE-OFFS

- OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Indian refiners, the world's biggest user of Russian oil, can operate without supplies from Moscow from a technical standpoint, but the shift would involve major economic and strategic trade-offs, analysts said.

Russian crude supports high distillate yields - the share of crude converted into fuels like petrol, diesel, and jet fuel through distillation. Replacing Russian crude, which accounts for up to 38 per cent of India's refinery intake, with alternatives will shift yields, resulting in lower middle distillates (diesel and jet fuel) and higher residue outputs, according to global real-time data and analytics provider Kpler.

US President Donald Trump last week announced an additional 25 per cent tariff on US imports from India — raising the overall duty to 50 per cent — as a penalty for the country's continued imports of Russian oil.

Since the steep tariffs are likely to hit the $27 billion of non-exempt exports that India does to the US, there has been chatter around stopping or curtailing oil imports from Russia.