India Prepared To Buy Venezuelan Oil Instead Of Russian Oil

• 19.01.2026, 16:29

Against the backdrop of Western sanctions.

India's state-owned Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd is studying the possibility of buying Venezuelan oil as it stops importing crude from Russia to comply with Western sanctions. Mangalore's chief financial officer Devendra Kumar said this in an interview with Reuters.

He said the company, which owns a 500,000 bpd refinery in the southern state of Karnataka, now covers about 40 percent of its crude oil needs with purchases in the Middle East, as well as buying batches on the spot market.

"We are strictly following ‍all sanctions imposed and are not importing Russian crude at present," Kumar said. - We do not expect any disruption ‍in our exports of finished products in the near term." According to the top executive, the company is actively considering ‍ purchase of Venezuelan oil if commercial conditions, including freight rates, are favorable.

Bloomberg calculates that in December, India cut its purchases of Russian oil to 1.1 million barrels per day - the lowest since November 2022. Over the month, supplies have fallen by nearly 40 percent, or 670,000 barrels per day, despite discounts that reach $26-28 per barrel, notes The Moscow Times.

About 35 million barrels of Russian crude are "stuck" at sea on tankers that have been forced to turn into floating storage facilities. Among them are at least 12 ships that left Russian ports in the direction of Asia, but dropped anchor near the coast of Oman without reaching the unloading ports.

The part of the volumes that did not reach India - the largest buyer of sea shipments of Russian Urals crude - is bought by Chinese refineries. However, the discounts that Beijing has to give to accommodate the unclaimed volumes are increasingly hurting the Russian budget, which lost every fourth ruble of oil and gas revenues last year.

The average Urals price in December fell below $40 per barrel for the first time since the pandemic crisis. And this promises the government a noticeable shortfall in oil and gas revenues: in 2026 they may be 1.4 trillion rubles below the plan, according to Astra AM investment director Dmitry Polevoy. The expert warns that oil companies will lose about $35 billion in export revenue if prices do not return to previous levels.