India is considering a Russian offer to buy crude oil and other commodities at discount prices a week after the U.S. banned all Russian energy imports, Reuters reported on Monday.
India, the world’s third-largest oil consumer and importer and one of the few countries not to condemn Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, currently imports 80 percent of its oil, but only about 2 percent to 3 percent of those purchases come from Russia.
“Russia is offering oil and other commodities at a heavy discount. We will be happy to take that,” an Indian government official told Reuters.
According to Bloomberg, India is looking to bypass Western-imposed sanctions that would allow it to purchase cheaper oil from Russia.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told Indian Petroleum Minister Hardeep Puri in a phone call on Friday that the country is keen to increase its oil and petroleum product exports to India along with Indian investments in the Russian oil sector, according to a statement issued by Moscow.
Puri and Novak also discussed strengthening the India-Russia strategic partnership in the energy sector.
“Russia’s oil and petroleum product exports to India have approached $1 billion, and there are clear opportunities to increase this figure,” a statement from Moscow said about the telephone call.
They also discussed “current and potential joint projects in the fuel and energy industry and noted that current projects continue to be steadily implemented.”
The U.S. is pressing India to take a stronger stance against the Kremlin’s aggression, but the country abstained from a United Nations vote condemning the Ukraine invasion.
India announced last month that it would tap into its national stockpile for oil reserves in an effort to curb rising global energy prices amid the invasion.
The country already released 3.5 million barrels as part of an agreement with the U.S. to combat rising gas prices. But India is now further “supporting initiatives for releases from strategic petroleum reserves to mitigate market volatility and calm the rise in crude oil prices,” according to a government statement reviewed by Reuters in February.