Indian companies continue to buy Russian crude oil at heavily discounted prices, paying $30-35 per barrel compared to the market price of about $100 per barrel.
Russian suppliers cannot take advantage of high commodity prices. Crude oil is trading near $100 per barrel, and natural gas prices have surpassed $3,000 per thousand cubic meters. However, Russia is forced to export oil and gas at a discount, with India buying oil at $30-35 per barrel and China importing gas at $200 per thousand cubic meters, for example. China and India are profiting from bargain prices by filling their stockpiles and selling excess commodities at market rates.
India’s Bharat Petroleum has recently bought 2 million barrels of Russian Urals oil with May loading. India has booked at least 16 million barrels of Russian oil since February 24, exceeding imports in all of 2021. With many buyers shunning Russian oil, the remaining importers are offered deep discounts. Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar told the Indian parliament that Russia continued to be a critical economic partner and that India strived to "stabilize economic transactions between India and Russia."
