Reported by Chidanand Rajghatta
India has put $ 37 billion into Moscow’s coffers with unprecedented purchase of Russian oil at a time it is locked in a war with Ukraine, a European think tank has said, suggesting that New Delhi’s largesse is undermining western sanctions.
According to an analysis by the Finland-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), India has increased its purchase of Russian crude by over 13 times its pre-war amounts.
The CREA report, first cited by CNN, acknowledges that India’s purchases “amounts to US strategic partner New Delhi stepping in to replace crude purchases by Western buyers,” and are “entirely legitimate.” In fact, it reveals that India refined some of the crude and exported it to the United States as oil products worth more than $1 billion.
But while Russian crude sales to India are not subject to sanctions, the report says an examination of shipping routes by experts suggests this huge volume of shipments might involve a so-called “shadow fleet” of crude tankers, specially created by Moscow to try to disguise who it is trading with and how, and maximize the Kremlin’s profits.
CNN says it witnessed what is a likely part of that complex trade off” at the Greek port of Gythio earlier this month: Two oil tankers – one massive, the other smaller – sidled up next to each other for a ship-to-ship transfer, which involves passing crude oil between vessels, sometimes with the aim of disguising its origin and ultimate destination.
“One is owned by an Indian-based company accused of involvement in sanctions violations, and the other was previously owned by an individual subject to separate US sanctions,” CNN reported, citing the shipping monitoring firm Pole Star Global.
“Transfers are (sometimes) done legally, but they’re also used as an illicit tactic to evade sanctions,” it quotes David Tannenbaum at Pole Star Global as saying. “You’re adding multiple layers to the shell game of vessels as they try and confuse authorities as to where this oil is coming from and who’s buying it at the end of the day.”
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