The Union finance minister cited global supply constraints and the needs of the country’s 1.4 billion people.
India cannot simply stop buying Russian oil and switch to other suppliers, Nirmala Sitharaman has said.
Her remarks came days after US President Donald Trump signed the Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act into law. “India can get out of Russia and say all right I’m buying oil from somewhere else. The legislation gives the US president powers to impose tariffs of up to 100% on countries that are major buyers of Russian oil and gas, putting India and China among the countries potentially exposed to the measure.
Because the global supply pool remains limited, at the BusinessLine Changemaker Awards on Tuesday, Sitharaman said moving away from Russian crude could drive up prices.
The moment you come out the available pool which is limited is going to shoot up in price,” she said. “It poses a severe challenge no doubt, but I think we will have to keep India’s interest topmost,” she said. Sitharaman said India would continue to source energy from different parts of the world, based on availability and suitability, while keeping domestic energy security in mind. “We will choose to source our energy requirement from every corner of the world, and that which suits us, suits not for anything else but for the availability,” she said.
“I hope that we will end this ( Russia-Ukraine war ) and President Trump will help us to end this war. Sitharaman said the government therefore had to consider not just where crude was available, but also whether Indian refineries could process it.
We need to do this as soon as possible, before winter, better before winter,” he said during a media interaction on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
