Russia now accounts for 18% of India’s crude imports; up from 1%

"It rose from around 1% before the invasion to 18% in May."

The largest buyer of Russian crude in India is the Jamnagar refinery, which received 27% of its oil from Russia in May 2022, a huge rise from less than 5% before April, the CREA report shows.

"Arrivals from Russia have mainly replaced arrivals from other sources, but there is also an uptick in crude intake since the start of April when the arrivals from Russia started to rise sharply."

Much oil is being re-exported to US, Europe

More than half of the refined oil deliveries from Jamnagar go outside of India. Around 20% of exported cargoes left for the Suez canal, indicating they were heading to either Europe or the U.S. "We identified shipments to the United States, France, Italy and the U.K.," the CREA report shows.

Due to long shipping distances, the emergence of “India’s refining trade” has meant that more tanker capacity than ever before is needed to ship Russian crude, says the report, while advocating for "strong sanctions" against tankers transporting Russian crude. This could significantly limit the scope for this kind of rerouting of Russia’s exports, it says, adding that it could end a "key vulnerability".

In April-May, 67% of deliveries of Russian crude oil were made with ships owned by European and U.S. companies. For deliveries to India and the Middle East, the share was even higher at 85%, with Greek tankers alone carrying 75%. "97% of tankers carrying Russian crude were insured in just three countries — U.K., Norway and Sweden."