India's decision to purchase oil from Russia amidst global uncertainties has played a crucial role in preventing a potential spike in global oil prices, said Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.
In an interview with CNN's Becky Anderson on the sidelines of the annual ADIPEC (Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition & Conference) energy industry event in Abu Dhabi, the Union Minister stated that without the Indian government's purchase of Russian oil, global prices could have soared to USD 200 per barrel for all consumers.
“Oil will remain a key part of the world's energy supply for years to come,” he said, adding that “India did everybody a favour!” Hardeep Singh Puri elaborated on India's stance to purchase Russian oil.
Puri told CNN, “Earlier I said I hope there will be a reduction in oil price. Today I'm more confident that there will be.”
"By 2026, when more energy is available in the market, as a student of the situation, I think that the likelihood of prices remaining stable and coming down are higher," Puri added.
When asked about India's 10 per cent reduction in oil imports from Russia in October, Puri explained that this change was due to competitive oil prices in the market.
"There are other people willing to supply at the same competitive rate because the OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) position is they don't deal with price. There's healthy competition going on. If you don't get it from one, you get it from someone else," the Union Minister said.
When asked if the decision to reduce Russian oil imports was strategic, he said, "These are oil decisions taken in the marketplace. When we face February 22, there were 13 million barrels of Russian oil on the market. Suddenly, if that oil had gone off the market and India had decided to shift its 5 million barrels to, say, suppliers in the Gulf, the price of oil would have gone up to 200 a barrel. So I think we did everybody a favour."
He said technological changes such as green hydrogen and the transition to cleaner energy will change the global oil demand landscape in five years. Puri also took to the microblogging website X, formerly known as Twitter, to share further details. "Russian oil was never under any sanctions and there was only a price cap, which Indian entities also followed."
He also noted that some "ill-informed commentators" wanted to impose restrictions on India when European and Asian countries had also made substantial energy purchases from Russia.
"Let us not forget that while some ill informed commentators talked about putting restrictions on India, many other European and Asian nations bought much more crude oil, diesel, LNG, rare earth minerals worth billions of dollars from Russia. We will continue to buy energy from whoever offers the best rates to our oil companies.," Puri wrote.
The Union Minister also noted in his X post, "We need to ensure steady availability, affordability, and sustainability of energy for our 7 crore citizens who visit a petrol pump every day. That's our top priority. India is the only major consumer where fuel prices have come down significantly in the last three years, despite unprecedented global price increases in other nations."
According to an estimate by the International Energy Agency in 2024, India is the third largest oil consumer in the world.
(With inputs from ANI)