Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri spoke with several media on the sidelines of the India Energy Week 2024 (Feb. 6-9), stressing that, “Russian oil currently accounts for 30%-34% of India’s total imports of oil, up from just 0.2% before the start of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022,” reported RT.
In a separate interview with TASS, he also emphasized, “Every time I meet any Russian head of a company, minister or deputy-minister, we all talk about more investments in India.”
Bloomberg reported that Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum are negotiating long-term agreements for steady supplies of crude oil with the Russian energy giant Rosneft.
“The refiners reportedly want to secure deliveries of around 500,000 barrels per day of Russian oil in the contracts. They also plan to include clauses which would protect them from penalties in case of payment issues and delivery delays,” reported RT.
The India Energy Week event was held “under the patronage of the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, Government of India, and officially supported by the Federation of Indian Petroleum Industry,” reported the website for the event.
It included 35,000 attendees, 350 exhibitors, 400 speakers and over 4,000 delegates from over 100 countries. The speakers included His Excellency Eng. Saad bin Sherida Al Kaabi, Minister of State for Energy Affairs & Cabinet Member, Qatar; Hon. Andrew Mercer, Deputy Minister of Energy, Ghana; and Hon. Vickram Bharrat, Minister of Natural Resources, Republic of Guyana. Several African nations were represented, as well as speakers from OPEC, Halliburton, and ExxonMobil India.
