Allaying fears of short supply of crude oil amid Russia-Ukraine conflict, Union Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Monday said that 60 per cent of India's crude oil needs are met from Gulf countries, and imports from Russia are minuscule and amounted to only 0.2 per cent of total imports made in the first nine months of the current financial year.
"Let me give you the exact figures. We require a total of five million barrels per day. That is our consumption. Sixty per cent of it comes from the Gulf. We have imported from Russia only 0.419 million metric tonnes out of the total of 17.5 million, which is very much less than one per cent, rather 0.2 per cent," Puri said in the Rajya Sabha.
The Minister was answering a query from Shiv Sena leader Priyanka Chaturvedi during the Question Hour.
"In the financial year 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21 and the first nine months of the current financial year, our total imports of crude from Russia have been 0.6 per cent, 1.3 per cent, 0.3 per cent and 0.2 per cent respectively," Puri said.
"It means, even less than 1 per cent figure of imports from Russia will take a long-time to fill at the current rate, because eleven months in the current financial year are already over," he added.
Referring to investments by Indian oil companies in Russia, he said these had been done over the years.
"Our oil companies have invested from the time - if I recall correctly - of Vajpayee's government, something (like) a total of US dollars 16 billion. Some of those investments are very profitable. As far as the oil imports from Russia are concerned, contrary to what has been played up in the media, these are miniscule," he said.
He said the total amount of crude oil contracted from Russia will be less than three days' supply and spread over three to four months.
"Even now, the total amount contracted will be less than three days' supply from Russia to India and that also spread over the next three to four months," the minister said.
"I would again like to reiterate that in the first nine months of the year, we have imported only 0.2 per cent of our requirement...Even if we were to scale these up considerably, it would still be a drop, literally a drop, in a larger bucket."
Replying to a supplementary question asked by another member, Puri said in 2020-21, the government imported 14 million metric tonnes of crude from the United States and "this represented 7.3 per cent of our requirements as against the less than one per cent from the Russian Federation".
"In the current year, based on our imports from the United States and if I look at the projection, these are likely to go up from 14 million metric tonnes to 16.8 million metric tonnes or a value of about 10 billion US dollars of imports of crude oil from the US," he said.
"If I add to that the amount of gas which we are importing and coal, I think the figure comes closer to 13.5 billion dollars of imports from the United States. So, it is a robust relationship on the energy front, and I see this continuing for some time," Puri said.
( With inputs from ANI )
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