Comment by cedws
2 years ago
From Reuters article:
>Europe typically imported an average of 154,000 barrels per day (bpd) of diesel and jet fuel from India before Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
>That increased to 200,000 bpd after the European Union banned Russian oil products imports from Feb. 5, Kpler data showed.
An increase of 50,000 bpd across the whole of Europe is nothing in the grand scheme of things. India imported on average 1.76m bpd last year[0].
>Anyhow, the last time Indian listened to Western oil sanctions over Iran in the 2008-10 period [1], the Indian economy ground to a halt and had a lost decade
That sounds like a them problem? Maybe they should invest more in renewables?
>Given this context, India ain't dropping this competitive advantage.
The world will remember those who profiteer from war.
[0]: https://www.reuters.com/world/india/russia-makes-up-40-india...
> That sounds like a them problem? Maybe they should invest more in renewables?
They are [0][1][2].
Hard to build renewables when majority of energy costs in 2010-2020 were spent using Dollars buying Oil and NatGas from the Gulf instead of using Rupees with Iran.
> The world will remember those who profiteer from war
But they don't.
The failure of sanctions on Iran showed that you can ignore Western sanctions and the Western relationship will continue just like before.
India's largest FDI sources are in Asia - Singapore and Japan [3] dwarf the US and EU, and both are Western countries as well.
The reality is countries compartmentalize relations and issues - India only cares about the China threat. The US mostly only really cares about the China threat with a bit of passive support against Russia (which btw has been fairly successful - Ukraine has been able to maintain a stalemate against a much larger adversary). European countries only really care about the Russia threat and are indifferent to China. Japan and SK don't care about Russia but care about NK and China.
To keep alliances, you need to compromise. The lack of compromising by American administrations in the 2010s caused us to lose Turkiye, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia as close allies.
The US can't afford to alienate Russia, China, AND India and ASEAN (most of whom lean pro-China now after getting ticked off for being called out for being anti-democratic).
And this is why Western countries are indifferent to the purchasing of Russian oil.
[0] - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/world/asia/india-coal-gre...
[1] - https://www.newyorker.com/news/dept-of-energy/indias-quest-t...
[2] - https://www.straitstimes.com/multimedia/graphics/2023/08/ind...
[3] - https://santandertrade.com/en/portal/establish-overseas/indi...