New Delhi: The US welcomes India’s role in supplying refined oil to global markets and is not looking to sanction New Delhi, officials from the Joe Biden administration said in a telephonic conference Wednesday night.
This comes ahead of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Speaking to a group of journalists, US Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources Geoffrey Pyatt — who served in New Delhi as the US Embassy’s Deputy Chief of Mission from 2006-2007 — and US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Karen Donfried explained that it was “natural” for India to “leverage” its oil refining capacities.
They also remarked that India’s role in global oil markets is helping further US policy.
“Even though India is not a participant in the [G7] price-cap coalition, India has effectively used its negotiating leverage – derived from the price cap and the fact that large portions of the global market are no longer acceptable to Russia – to drive down the price that it pays for Russian crude,” Pyatt said.
He added this helped advance the US’ two-fold policy “of stabilising global markets and denying resources to the Kremlin”.
“We are not looking to sanction India and our partnership with India is one of our most consequential relationships,” Donfried said.
Last December, the G7 set a price cap of $60 per barrel for Russian crude oil. However, India did not back it – a move that was welcomed by Moscow. The EU has also imposed an embargo on Russian oil products earlier this week.
A recent Bloomberg report pointed out India’s growing role in global oil markets, alleging it was buying large amounts of cheap Russian oil and refining it into fuel for Europe and the US.
The report indicated that India shipped approximately 89,000 barrels a day of gas and diesel to New York in January this year – the largest volume in almost four years.
Meanwhile, India continues to buy large amounts of Russian crude, clocking in at 1.2 million barrels per day in December last year.
‘Comfortable with the approach India has taken’
During the conference, Pyatt defended the G7’s price cap move, arguing it was still effective despite less than 40 countries backing it.
“We do not believe our sanctions policy in the energy space needs to have universal adherence in order to be effective. We are comfortable with the approach that India has taken, and value the intensive dialogue that we have with the Government of India around these issues,” he said.
Pyatt described India’s oil refinery capacities in cities like Jamnagar and Chandigarh as “extraordinary”.
“It’s only natural that India should seek to leverage that refining capacity to supply global markets,” he said.
“We welcome the fact that India is doing so in a way that advances our goals of denying resources to the Russian Federation which Vladimir Putin uses to pay for the brutal attacks we are seeing on Ukrainian citizens,” he added.
Data released last year by the International Energy Agency (IEA) – an autonomous intergovernmental organisation — suggests that Russia’s share of internationally traded energy will nearly halve by 2030.
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