In February 2023, Russia surpassed Saudi Arabia to be come the second biggest exporter of crude oil to India in FY23 ( chart 1). Iraq continued to retain the top spot, though the gap is closing fast. In the four-month period between November 2022 and February 2023, Russia took over the top spot, while the shares of Saudi Arabia and Iraq in India’s oil imports are fast decreasing ( chart 2).
Chart 1 | The chart shows the share of select top countries in India’s crude oil imports in the April-February period for the past four financial years. As can be observed, Russia’s share zoomed to second-highest in FY23 from a negligible proportion in the previous years.
