China, Türkiye ramp up Russia oil purchases

China and Türkiye are boosting purchases of discounted Russian oil, offered at better rates to them for deliveries in September, October, and November.

- S DINAKAR

This comes after Trump cut off India's access to the crude by the end of the month, industry officials said, and market data showed.

China has increased purchases of Russian Urals crude oil sixfold compared to the first half of this year while India has had to reduce it to nil after Trump slapped secondary tariffs of 25 percent from August 27 on most Indian exports as penalty for using Russian oil, according to industry data.

Indian refiners had to opt for alternative West Asia, US, and West African grades at higher costs of $2-$3 per barrel compared to Russian deliveries. But China slashed purchases of expensive term Saudi crude oil to the lowest level since April after it secured access to Russian oil, industry officials said.

India is still a very important market for Russia, refining officials said.

Indian refiners, led by Reliance Industries and Nayara Energy, sourced 1.3 million barrels per day (bpd) of medium, sour Urals grade this year till date compared to just 51,000 bpd for China and 280,000 bpd for Türkiye. This reflects the wide gap that China and Türkiye alone will be unable to plug, according to market intelligence agency Kpler's ship-tracking data.