Russia becomes India's second largest oil exporter

Russia supplied 819,000 barrels of oil to India in May. This ranked Russia second after Iraq. Moscow has been increasing oil exports to Asian countries lately as they can buy Russian oil at a large discount.

In May, Russia became India's second largest oil exporter, Reuters reports citing trade sources. Iraq was ranked first, while Saudi Arabia came third.

Indian refineries received about 819,000 barrels of Russian oil last month (in April — only 277,000). Russian oil accounted for about 16.5 percent of India's imports in May.

European buyers have lost much of their interest in the Russian oil after the sanctions, but India can now buy it at a big discount.

In March, the United States banned the supplies of Russian hydrocarbons. In early June, as part of the sixth package of sanctions against Russia, the European Union announced a decision to gradually refuse from the consumption of Russian oil and petroleum products by sea. The sanctions also affected a number of Russian energy companies, as well as the sale of equipment for the energy sector and investments in it.

Moscow said that Russia would find other markets. On May 9, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said that Russia already found new buyers, whereas the volume of deliveries in several directions, including to the countries of the Asia-Pacific region, had increased.

In May, Asian countries left Europe behind in terms of oil imports from Russia.