The world's third-largest oil importer, India, remained Russia's number-two crude buyer in July, importing $2.8 billion worth of Russian crude, according to the latest monthly data of Russian fossil fuel exports by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).
Last month, India was the second-largest buyer of Russian fossil fuels, CREA's analysis showed. Nearly 80% of India's fossil fuel imports from Russia were crude oil, valued at $2.8 billion (2.6 billion euros).
China bought 47% of Russia's crude oil export in July, followed by India (37%), the EU (7%), and Turkey (6%), the analysis by CREA found.
India also bought 18% of Russia's coal exports, also second only to China, which purchased 45% of the coal exported by Russia.
Russia has become India's top oil supplier since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Western embargoes and other sanctions on Russian crude sales. India has snapped up a large part of Russian spot supply over the past two years, but it is now looking to sign long-term supply deals.
Indian state-held refiners have started jointly to discuss terms of a potential deal with Russia for long-term supply of Russian oil, a government source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters last month.
India needs "predictable and stable" oil supplies amid expanding refining capacity, the source added.
Some of India's private refiners have already struck long-term agreements to purchase Russian oil. These include Nayara Energy, in which Russian oil giant Rosneft has a stake, as well as Reliance Industries, which operates the Jamnagar refinery in India, the world's largest and most complex single-site refinery.
Reliance Industries signed earlier this year a one-year agreement with Rosneft to buy at least two cargoes of Urals crude in Russian rubles per month.
Russia was India's single largest oil supplier for a second consecutive fiscal year, as surging imports of Russian crude dragged down the share of OPEC and Middle East supply to India to a record low.
By Tsvetana Paraskova
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More