“This is just the beginning,” said India’s Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan after meeting with Sechin.
Under the contract with Rosneft, Indian Oil will exercise its option to buy Russian grade Urals oil, an IOC source told Reuters. Indian state refiners typically buy Russian oil via the spot market rather than under a contract.
As the world’s third-biggest oil consumer and importer, India has recently been diversifying the sources of its crude oil imports. The country which ships in more than 80 percent of its crude needs has been relying on the Middle East for most of its supply. However, its imports from the region slid to a four-year low in 2019.
According to the Indian oil minister, the South Asian country also wants to participate in the Vostok Oil project in the Russian Arctic.
Rosneft’s Vostok Oil was set up to explore the biggest existing oil deposits in northern Russia, including the Lodochnoye, Tagulskoye, and Suzunskoye oilfields, as well as other prospective oil sites. The project’s annual crude production could be up to 100 million tons, according to preliminary estimates.
