India Bought 80% Of Russia’s Seaborne Urals Crude During January-May 2025

India has purchased 80% of Russia’s seaborne Urals crude exports this year, with two private refineries increasingly buying more of this variety, according to data analytics provider Kpler.

Indian conglomerates Reliance Industries and Nayara Energy have bought 45% of the Urals crude imported into the country, with India purchasing 231 million barrels of Urals crude this year, according to Kpler. Both Reliance’s and Nayara’s Russian oil purchases witnessed a significant jump in 2025.

Reliance Industries became the world’s largest buyer of Russian oil this year, buying 77 million barrels of Urals crude in 2025. Reliance, which is owned by Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, signed a ten-year deal with Rosneft in December 2024 for 500,000 barrels of crude per day (bpd), worth around US$13 billion annually, marking the largest energy deal between Moscow and New Delhi.

Nayara Energy has part-Russian ownership. In 2017, Rosneft Group led a consortium to buy a 98% stake in Essar Oil for US$12.9 billion. The company was later restructured as Nayara Energy, with Rosneft keeping a 49.13% stake. Around 72% of its oil imports consisted of Russian crude, a significant increase from 27% just three years ago.

Russia has been India’s largest oil supplier since the Ukraine conflict began in 2022. In May this year, India’s imports of Russian crude oil reached around 1.8 million bpd, the highest level in ten months, according to Kpler data. The surge in imports in May has helped Moscow solidify its position as a major oil supplier to the world’s most populous country.

Industry watchers attribute India’s frenetic buying of Russian crude to the volatile situation in the Middle East. Tehran, which controls the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil shipping route that accounts for 20% of the global oil supply, threatened to close the waterway in the wake of the US attacks on three of its nuclear installations last week. While a ceasefire is now in place, tensions between Iran, Israel, and the United States remain tense. New Delhi has said it would be able to offset the effects of the Strait of Hormuz being closed off.