India reveals US worry over Russian oil

THE United States expressed concern to India that it was being used to export fuel made from Russian crude – through high-seas transfers to hide its origin – to New York in violation of US sanctions, a top Indian central banker said last Saturday (13).

The US Treasury Department told Delhi an Indian ship picked up oil from a Russian tanker on the high seas and brought it to a port in Gujarat, where it was refined and shipped on, said Michael Patra, deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India.

US sanctions on Moscow for its February invasion of

Ukraine prohibit the import to the US of Russian-origin energy products including crude oil, refined fuels, distillates, coal and gas.

“The refined output was put back on that ship and it set sail without a destination. In midseas it received the destination, so it reached its course, went to New York,” Patra said at an event to celebrate 75 years of India’s independence.

The US embassy in New Delhi said it had no immediate comment on the matter.

Patra’s comments are India’s first official public reference to such US concerns. Delhi has not joined the sanctions against

Russia or condemned what Moscow calls a “special military operation” in its neighbour.

Patra said he was told the Russian crude was processed and converted into a distillate used for making single-use plastic. He did not identify the Indian vessel or refiner. “So that’s the way war works. It works in strange ways,” he said.

India, the world’s number three oil importer and consumer, rarely bought Russian oil in the past.

But since the war started, Indian refiners have been snapping up discounted Russian oil, shunned by many Western countries and companies.