As Russia oil sanctions bite, will India end buying spree?

India has been snapping up discounted Russian crude for three years, but US sanctions that took effect Friday are expected to end the trade, writes Alex Travelli from New Delhi

- 

The last supertankers filled with Russian oil bound for India left their docks in the Black Sea about four weeks ago, racing to reach their destination before Friday, when US sanctions on companies doing business with Russia's two biggest oil firms were scheduled to take effect.

The last-minute stockpiling was expected to mark the end of India’s three-year buying spree of Russian oil. Since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Indian companies have snapped up discounted barrels of its crude, capitalising on depressed prices after restrictions imposed by the European Union narrowed demand.

Muyu Xu, a Singapore-based analyst at Kpler, a company that tracks global trade, said she was expecting “a notable scaling back of Russian crude oil arrivals” in India after Friday.

India’s intake of Russian crude became a stumbling block in its ongoing trade negotiations with President Donald Trump, who started telling the country to stop buying it over the summer. In August, he stunned India by imposing a special tariff to punish it for buying the oil, effectively doubling the US import duty on Indian goods to 50%, which dealt a crippling blow to a range of industries.