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NEW DELHI: US President Donald Trump's menace to bring backmost the 25% "penalty" if India does not halt buying Russian crude has deepened the question people connected the operations of Nayara refinery successful Jamnagar. The situation facing the refinery has triggered talks astir alteration of ownership. While the refinery, nether mean circumstances, would suffice to beryllium a bully buy, US's hardline stance whitethorn beryllium to beryllium a dampener for prospective buyers, thing which is going to persist unless determination is simply a melodramatic breakthrough successful the talks to get Russia to intermission its aggression against Ukraine. Rosneft - Russia's state-run vigor elephantine that has been sanctioned by the Trump medication successful bid to unit Vladimir Putin into agreeing to intermission his violative against Ukraine - owns bulk involvement successful the 20 cardinal metric tonnes per annum refinery.
Located astatine Vadinar (Gujarat), Nayara, the country's second-largest single-site refinery, specialises successful processing dense crude. Until the US sanctions were imposed, it was astir wholly babelike connected Russian crude arsenic feedstock. Analysts said with the contiguous aboriginal of the refinery successful mind, India whitethorn proceed negotiating with the Trump medication to let import of smaller volumes of Russian crude. Indian refineries person been cutting down connected acquisition of Russian crude.
Though observers said India cannot instantly halt purchases adjacent if it decides to trim dependence connected Urals arsenic refiners person already booked Russian cargoes for the adjacent 8 to 10 weeks and cancelling them is not feasible, it does not region the uncertainty astir the destiny of Nayara. "My consciousness is that India volition inactive bargain with the US to import immoderate magnitude of lipid from Russia, particularly for Nayara refinery," said Prashant Vasisht, elder V-P astatine ratings bureau ICRA. Energy adept Narendra Taneja said India volition proceed importing lipid from Russia too, though volumes would decline. "India volition proceed to get lipid supplies from Russia for 2 reasons - to asseverate its strategical autonomy and to support the close optics for home governmental consumption," helium said. "Since India has to marque purchases of $500 cardinal from the US implicit a play of 5 years - imports of oil, state and LPG are the champion mode to timepiece the numbers up quickly, which wide is not a atrocious thought since what we are going to backmost successful instrumentality (capital, exertion and bigger entree to American markets) is rather attractive," helium said. India imports astir one-third of its crude from Russia, and purchases fell to $2.7 cardinal successful Dec 2025 - the lowest monthly worth of shipments successful the past 3 years - and astir 27% little than the $3.7 cardinal recorded successful Nov, according to commerce section data. Despite the decline, Russia remained the largest crude supplier to India successful 2025-26, accounting for 31.5% of purchases worthy $105.1 cardinal during April-Dec.
