Russia assures continued oil and LNG supplies to India
Moscow/New Delhi: Moscow on Wednesday reaffirmed its commitment to supplying energy resources to India, with officials underlining crude oil, coal and future LNG exports as core areas of cooperation.
“We continue to ship fuel, including crude oil and oil products, thermal and coking coal. We see potential for exporting Russian LNG,” said Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov. He made the remarks while co-chairing the 26th session of the India-Russia Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific-Technological and Cultural Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC) with India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
Jaishankar, who arrived in Russia on Tuesday for a three-day visit, said the deliberations covered a wide spectrum of issues. “We had detailed discussions on our cooperation in a wide-ranging arena including trade & economic sector, agriculture, energy, industries, skilling, mobility, education and culture,” he posted on social media. He added that the outcomes would feed into preparations for the Annual Leaders Summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Vladimir Putin later this year.
Manturov highlighted that the majority of bilateral trade payments have already moved away from the dollar. “We have managed to transfer more than 90 per cent of payments between Russia and India to national currencies,” he said, adding that further steps would be taken to boost cooperation in banking and insurance sectors. Energy remained a focal point of discussions. Manturov said Moscow was keen to expand cooperation in the peaceful nuclear sector, drawing from “the successful experience of the Kudankulam NPP construction project.”
Following the session, both sides signed a protocol of the meeting, with details expected to be released jointly by New Delhi and Moscow. Amid pressure from Washington, Russia assured India that energy flows would remain uninterrupted. Deputy Trade Representative of Russia to India, Evgeniy Griva, said in New Delhi that oil shipments would continue with a negotiable discount. “There will be a 5 per cent discount, subject to negotiation, on Russian crude oil purchases to India,” he noted, stressing that pricing remained a matter of “business-to-business dialogue.”
Russian Deputy Chief of Mission Roman Babushkin echoed the view, saying, “It is a challenging situation for India, but we have trust in our ties. We are confident that India-Russia energy cooperation will continue notwithstanding the external pressure.”
During his Moscow visit, Jaishankar paid homage at the Tomb of Unknown Soldier at the Kremlin Wall and held interactions with Russian policy experts. On Thursday, he is scheduled to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to discuss current global issues and set the agenda for the upcoming Modi-Putin meeting at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in China later this month.
