US 'allowed' India to receive Russian crude but New Delhi says decision remains ours

New Delhi: President Donald Trump’s administration in Washington, DC, has granted New Delhi a “30-day waiver” to allow India to import oil from Russia, United States Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said, as the conflict in West Asia triggered concerns in India over energy supplies.

The US announced the waiver for India a month after lifting the 25 per cent tariff it had imposed on imports from the South Asian nation to dissuade it from buying oil from Russia.

Trump had claimed on February 6 that he had withdrawn the punitive tariff as India had committed to stop directly and indirectly importing oil from Russia and taken significant steps to align sufficiently with the US on national security, foreign policy and economic matters.

“President Trump’s energy agenda has resulted in oil and gas production reaching the highest levels ever recorded. To enable oil to keep flowing into the global market, the Treasury Department is issuing a temporary 30-day waiver to allow Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil,” Bessent posted on X early on Friday.

“This deliberately short-term measure will not provide significant financial benefit to the Russian government, as it only authorises transactions involving oil already stranded at sea.”

Trump had also warned on February 6 that the punitive tariff might be reimposed on India if it restarted importing oil from Russia in the future.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government did not officially comment on the US allowing India to buy oil from Russia. New Delhi had also refrained from confirming or denying the US president’s claim that he had nudged India to stop its energy imports from Russia.

Sources in New Delhi, however, said that India took its own decisions on who it would buy its energy from. Russia remained one of the top exporters of energy to India, added the sources.

Terming India “an essential partner” of the US, Bessent wrote on X on Friday that Washington, D.C., fully anticipated that New Delhi would ramp up purchases of oil from America. “This stopgap measure (the waiver to let India buy oil from Russia) will alleviate pressure caused by Iran’s attempt to take global energy hostage.”

The Office of Foreign Asset Control of the Department of the Treasury in the US authorised the delivery and sale of crude oil and petroleum products originating in Russia and loaded on vessels for export to India as of March 5.

The attacks by the US and Israel on Iran, the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, and the counterattacks by Iran on Israel and the US military bases in the Gulf widened the conflict in West Asia over the past few days. As close to half of India’s crude oil imports, nearly 2.5 million barrels per day, as well as a sizeable share of its liquefied natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas supplies, are typically transported through the Strait of Hormuz, the security uncertainty around the narrow shipping lane in the Persian Gulf due to the escalating conflict triggered fears about the disruption of energy supply from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates to the South Asian country.

Trump had, on August 6, 2025, determined that the actions and policies of the Government of the Russian Federation had continued to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the US. To deal with the threat, he had determined that it would be necessary and appropriate to impose an additional ad valorem rate of duty of 25% on imports of articles of India, which, at that time, had been directly or indirectly importing oil from Russia.

“India has committed to stop directly or indirectly importing Russian Federation oil, has represented that it will purchase United States energy products from the United States, and has recently committed to a framework with the United States to expand defence cooperation over the next 10 years,” the US president had claimed in an executive order on February 6. “I have determined that India has taken significant steps to address the national emergency described in Executive Order 14066 (one that was issued in August 2025) and to align sufficiently with the United States on national security, foreign policy, and economic matters.”

Russia’s share in India’s total crude oil imports rose from less than 2% before the launch of its war in Ukraine in 2022 to around 40% by 2023–24. But imports from Russia came down from over 2 million barrels per day in June 2025 to 1.6 million barrels per day in September 2025. The imports saw a rebound in October 2025 and the first half of November 2025, but fell by nearly 30% after the stringent US sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil of Russia came into effect. India purchased crude oil worth $2.7 billion from Russia in December 2025, marking the lowest monthly intake since February 2025.

Russia remained India’s largest crude supplier in February, contributing 1.07 million barrels per day (bpd), though shipments were nearly 40% below the record 1.8 million bpd in November 2025 and about 10% lower than in January 2026, according to market analytics firm Kpler. Saudi Arabia was the second largest crude oil supplier to India last month, contributing 1.05 million barrels a day.