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19-07-2025
Bureau Report
NEW DELHI: India is confident of meeting its oil needs from alternative sources if Russian supplies are hit by secondary sanctions, Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Thursday.
Earlier this week, U.S. President Donald Trump warned that countries purchasing Russian exports could face sanctions if Moscow fails to reach a peace agreement with Ukraine within 50 days.
Separately, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warned on Wednesday that some countries, including India, could be hit very hard by the sanctions if they continued to do business with Russia.
India should be able to deal with any problems with Russian imports by seeking supplies from other countries, Puri said. He noted there are many new suppliers coming onto the market such as Guyana and supply from existing producers such as Brazil and Canada.
Additionally, India is increasing exploration and production activities.
“I’m not worried at all. If something happens, we’ll deal with it,” Puri said at an industry event in New Delhi.
“India has diversified the sources of supply and we have gone, I think, from about 27 countries that we used to buy from to about 40 countries now,” he said.
Responding to Rutte’s comments, India’s foreign ministry spokesperson said that securing energy needs was an “overriding priority” for the country, in which it was guided by what was on offer in markets and the “prevailing global circumstances”.
“We would particularly caution against any double standards on the matter,” spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told a regular media briefing.
India’s oil imports from Russia rose marginally in the first half of this year, with private refiners Reliance Industries Ltd and Nayara Energy making about half of the overall purchases from Moscow.
Russia continued to be the top supplier to India, accounting for about 35% of India’s overall supplies, followed by Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates, the data showed.
In case Russian supplies are hit, Indian Oil Corp (IOC.NS), opens new tab will “go back to the same template (of supplies) as was used pre-Ukraine crisis when Russian supplies to India were below 2%,” company Chairman A.S. Sahney told reporters at the event.
Earlier, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warned on Wednesday that countries such as Brazil, China and India could be hit very hard by secondary sanctions if they continued to do business with Russia.
Rutte made the comment while meeting with senators in the U.S. Congress the day after President Donald Trump announced new weapons for Ukraine and threatened “biting” secondary tariffs of 100% on the buyers of Russian exports unless there is a peace deal in 50 days.
“My encouragement to these three countries, particularly is, if you live now in Beijing, or in Delhi, or you are the president of Brazil, you might want to take a look into this, because this might hit you very hard,” Rutte told reporters, who met with Trump on Monday and agreed the new steps.
“So please make the phone call to Vladimir Putin and tell him that he has to get serious about peace talks, because otherwise this will slam back on Brazil, on India and on China in a massive way,” Rutte added.
Republican U.S. Senator Thom Tillis praised Trump for announcing the steps, but said the 50-day delay “worries” him.
