A clamour is rising to demand that India should stop buying crude oil from Russia. Several reasons are put forward in support of the demand. The saving from cheaper oil from Russia is more than offset, several times over, by exports lost to the additional layer of 25% tariffs that has been placed on America’s imports from India to punish New Delhi for continued purchase of Russian oil.The principal beneficiary of oil imports from Russia is Reliance and its primary shareholder, Mukesh Ambani — Reliance gets to import crude cheap from Russia, then refines it and sells petrol, diesel and aviation turbine fuel at market prices around the world, earning extra profits. Why should India invite Trump’s wrath, penalise thousands of small producers, whose exports to the US have become unviable, to benefit the richest of India’s richie rich?
.png)
