![]() ![]() In March, for example, Indian fuel requirements jumped by 5 per cent year-on-year to 4.83 million barrels per day (bpd). ![]() Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, however, seems to believe that India is simply seizing the opportunity to snap up cheap crude to meet its rising demand. ![]() ![]() India will probably find, like Germany and other European nations before it, that becoming dependent on Putin for critical energy supplies is to place oneself far too much under his control. Russia has even knocked the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) off the top spot for supplying India, since Western nations rejected Kremlin-supplied black gold following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Karan Mehrishi, Indian economics commentator, tells the Telegraph that Russian imports have saved India around $3bn in the past year, compared to its total annual oil import bill of nearly $120bn. The West has traditionally seen India as a friend, but when it comes to actions rather than words the world’s fifth biggest economy pays more attention to what Vladimir Putin wants than it does to the desires of Washington or London. It’s also now the biggest buyer of Russian crude oil in the world, and its armed forces are largely equipped with Russian weapons. India is now the largest country in the world by population, having surpassed China in the latest UN figures. ![]()
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