India’s crude imports from Russia were valued at $50.3 billion in FY25, accounting for more than a third of the country’s total crude bill of $143.1 billion. Indian refiners, including RIL, process this crude and export petroleum products globally, including to the EU.
“There will be a wind-down period, we hope, and we’ll need to assess the scope of the sanctions-especially how they define products,” said Srinivas Tuttagunta, Chief Operating Officer (Supply and Trading), RIL. “In previous instances, definitions allowed for products that were ‘substantially transformed’.”
India exported petroleum products worth $5 billion to the EU last year.
Tuttagunta said RIL would review the final text of the sanctions before taking a formal position. “We are quite diversified,” he said. “Light distillates primarily go to the US and other destinations, while middle distillates head to Europe. But we also have markets in Africa, Singapore, the Middle East and others.”
He added that should Europe lose access to certain distillates, margins could rise sharply. “That has been the trend historically, as we saw in 2022 during the initial Russian sanctions.””We’ll wait to see the full details. But overall, margins could be constructive again, depending on how the situation evolves,” he said.
