Opinion: India is using Russian oil to undercut the U.S. Congress must put a stop to it.
MarketWatchMay 06, 2023
Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign policy chief, has said that while the bloc did not mind increased oil trade between Russia and India, it will curb importing Indian petroleum products that use Russian oil, including diesel.
This comes as India in the past year has become a top buyer of Russian oil following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Access to affordable Russian oil has boosted output and earnings at Indian refineries, allowing them to export competitively to Europe and take a larger market percentage.
Not only has India shown disregard for its allies' sanctions on Russian oil, but it has then used these low prices to turn around and profit billions of dollars by selling products to the West. By trying to help boost the Indian economy, the West has allowed New Delhi to hurt Western companies while not having to participate in the sanctions effort. It's time for India to change course and align with the norms of the global rules-based order.
After allowing India to continue purchasing Russian crude oil, the EU is now afraid that its refineries are producing gas that may have been made with that same oil. The only problem is that India also buys oil from Saudi Arabia and Iraq, which would make it virtually impossible to know which products were made with which country's oil. This example shows the haphazard hypocrisies of Western energy policies.
There's a 50% chance that peak oil extraction was reached by July 2019, according to the Metaculus prediction community.