'India Not Worried About US Secondary Sanctions,' Says Union Minister Hardeep Puri As Russian Imports Continue
New Delhi: The government on Thursday stressed that it was not “unduly worried” about secondary sanctions. The stand articulated by Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Puri came in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s recent threat that 100% secondary tariffs would be imposed on nations buying oil from Russia, and showed once again that India would not be toeing the West’s line on Ukraine.
The minister’s statements were echoed by the MEA asserting that securing India’s energy needs remained the main concern of the government.
Speaking at the Urja Varta 2025, an annual upstream oil and gas conclave, Puri said that the large global supply ensured that India would have more than enough oil to meet its needs even if there was a crackdown on Russian oil. Pointing out that India currently buys oil from over 40 countries, he said that the global market had more than enough supply to meet New Delhi’s energy needs.
“My own view is the price of oil will come down. It will come down only because there is more oil available in the international market. There is more oil coming on the global market from the western hemisphere. I mean countries such as Brazil, Guyana and Canada. They’re not even OPEC+ members. I’m not worried at all. If something happens, we'll deal with it.”
MEA spokesman Randhir Jaiswal also took a similar line. Reacting to recent remarks made by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte that India would be “hit hard” by secondary sanctions if it continued to buy Russian oil and gas, Jaiswal said: “Let me reiterate and I've said this in the past as well that securing the energy needs of our people is understandably anoverriding priority for us. We are guided by what is there on offer in the markets as also the prevailing global circumstances. We would particularly caution against any double standards on the matter.”
Statistics show since February 2022, at the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, Russian oil comprised 0.2% of India’s oil imports. It has now increased to around 36%. While this has led to accusations from the West that India is funding the ongoing war, New Delhi has retorted that Europe has not stopped buying oil and gas from Russia either. Also, as Puri pointed out, had India not bought Russian oil there would have been an energy crisis.
Speaking at the OPEC International Seminar in Vienna last week, Puri said a sudden halt of Russian oil, which makes up 10% of global supply, would have caused chaos, pushing oil prices to $120–130 per barrel. “Russia produces over 9 million barrels of crude daily — nearly 10% of global supply. If that had vanished overnight, the world would have faced an impossible task of reducing consumption by over 10%. That kind of chaos would’ve sent prices spiralling,” Puri warned. He also clarified that Russian oil was never under global sanctions, but rather a price cap mechanism was applied by Western nations. “Sensible decision-makers recognised global oil supply realities. India’s choice to buy discounted oil under the cap helped global markets.”
Oil aside, India also insisted that its bilateral and multilateral engagements with Moscow remained unchanged. At the MEA press briefing, Jaiswal confirmed that the annual India-Russia summit would be held this year in Delhi though the dates still had to be worked out. Similarly, exact dates for the RussiaIndia-China (RIC) summit and the SCO leaders' summit scheduled for August were yet to be finalised.
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