India is well-stocked with inventories of crude oil and key petroleum products, including petrol, diesel, and aviation turbine fuel (ATF), to deal with short-term disruptions as the war intensifies in West Asia, Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri said on Tuesday.
Of the 1.32 trillion capex target for FY26, State-run oil firms have already spent 1.07 trillion in the first 10 months.
Private-sector oil refiner Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) last week received a general licence from the United States (US) government to buy Venezuelan oil, an industry executive said.
India could save $1 billion in crude oil imports annually if the country switches 10 per cent of its diesel usage in the transport sector to liquefied natural gas.
State-owned Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) is willing to dilute a 30-40 per cent stake in its upcoming greenfield refinery in Andhra Pradesh, with Gulf energy major Saudi Aramco and upstream player Oil India Ltd (OIL) likely to join as partners, a senior BPCL executive said.
India's decision to import LPG from the US helps it to diversify sources as it reduces almost full reliance on West Asian countries for supply of the country's primary cooking fuel.
In a first, Indian oil public sector undertakings (PSUs) finalised a one-year contract to import around 2.2 million tonnes (mt) of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) from the US. The LPG import deal comes at a time when negotiations for an India-US bilateral trade agreement (BTA) are gathering steam. Earlier in the month, US President Donald Trump had said Washington and New Delhi were "pretty close" to reaching a fair trade deal.
India offset the decline in exports to traditional destinations by sharply ramping up shipments to Jordan (18,086 per cent), Hong Kong (17,006 per cent), Spain (13,436 per cent), the Philippines (2,235 per cent), and Namibia (1,068 per cent) in H1FY26.
After a three-month slowdown, India's oil imports (already landed) from Russia bounced back in the first 15 days of October to 1.8 million barrels per day.
'Crude oil prices are around $66-67 per barrel now but could fall to $55-60 if global disturbances ease.'
The latest decision of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, commonly known as Opec+, to boost output is being seen as an attempt to regain market share lost to the US, Brazil, and other oil producers, who have been increasing production recently.
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