The US is looking to persuade India’s Reliance Industries Ltd. to refine more Venezuelan crude as Washington seeks to bring additional supplies to a market rattled by the Iran conflict.
The possibility will be discussed with Reliance when US Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets with Chairman Mukesh Ambani and his team, Rubio told reporters on Tuesday, shortly after arriving in Mumbai for a three-day trip.
Describing India as “a refining superpower,” Rubio said the country has the capacity to handle Venezuelan crude, which is heavy and waxy and difficult to process.
“They also, by the way, have pre-existing oil concessions in Venezuela that can produce more themselves,” he added.
Rubio is scheduled on Wednesday to visit Reliance’s Jamnagar refining complex in Gujarat, the world’s largest. Upon arrival Tuesday, he met Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and advocated for India purchasing more US technologies and systems, according to a readout from the State Department.
US Ambassador Sergio Gor described the talks as “productive,” saying the two sides were committed to deepening ties in defense, energy, emerging technologies and trade.
Rubio said Reliance Industries could help India diversify its energy supplies as Venezuela increases oil production, citing the Indian conglomerate’s extensive refining capacity. “Venezuela is increasing its production of energy, and India’s had a long history of being able to refine some of that,” he said in an interview to CNBCTV18 in India on Tuesday.
Reliance is the country’s main exporter of transport fuels such as diesel, as most of the country’s extensive refining capacity is geared toward the domestic market.
Reliance’s refining capabilities could create opportunities for closer energy cooperation between the US and India, including processing supplies from the Western Hemisphere, he said. “We think there’s an opportunity for them to continue to help India diversify its supply chain, its supply of energy.”
India’s sources of oil, and particularly Reliance’s purchases, have been at the center of Trump’s geopolitical challenges before. Last year, when the administration was seeking to pressure Moscow over the war in Ukraine, the company and its owner Ambani came under thinly veiled attacks by administration officials for relying on Russian supplies.
The visit comes as Washington and New Delhi are said to be close to finalizing a trade deal after more than a year of negotiations. The US accounts for about 20% of India’s exports.
“They want to make a deal. We’re going to make a deal. Pretty close, yeah,” President Donald Trump said Tuesday when asked by reporters at the White House about the prospects for an agreement. The president said it “could be a much different kind of deal,” without elaborating.
The two nations have been seeking to steady a relationship strained over trade and Russia. Trump has so far held back from imposing new penalties under a sanctions bill designed to punish Russia and championed by the late Senator Lindsey Graham, giving the two sides room to focus on where their strategic and economic interests align.
Russia remains India’s biggest supplier this year, with flows reaching a record of nearly 2 million barrels a day, or about 40% of imports — up from barely 2% before Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Venezuelan shipments have climbed to their highest since 2019, though at a far smaller 187,000 barrels a day. US flows have nearly halved, to 165,000 barrels a day, as higher freight costs eroded their competitiveness.
Rubio is also meeting about half a dozen Indian companies with US interests, including those of Gautam Adani and Ambani, two of India’s richest men, the New York Times reported.
The Adani Group has pledged to invest up to $30 billion in the US after settling cases brought by the US government and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Reliance, which operates one of the world’s largest refining complexes in Gujarat, has partnered on a new refinery in Brownsville, Texas.
India needs a realistic approach to its relationship with the US as Washington recalibrates how it engages globally, Jaishankar told Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait last week. “The reality is the United States has repositioned itself. It’s changed the manner in which it engages the world,” he said. “So I think every country, in a way, has to recalculate and reset its relationship with the United States.”
The two ministers also paid homage to the victims of the Mumbai terror attacks, laying a wreath at the memorial inside the Taj Mahal Palace.
Disclaimer: This report is auto generated from the Bloomberg news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.