New Delhi. India always stands with its friendly countries. Sometimes helping others benefits yourself too. Something similar happened with India also. India has gained approximately Rs 2 lakh crore by helping Russia. In fact, after Russia’s attack on Ukraine, America and other European countries had imposed many sanctions on Russia. These sanctions also include a ban on buying crude oil from Russia. The friendship between India and Russia is well known. In such a situation, to help Russia, India ignored the threats from America and other European countries and decided to buy cheap crude oil from Russia.
According to data from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell of the Petroleum Ministry, India imported 232.5 million tonnes of crude oil between April 2023 and March 2024. Although the quantity of crude oil imported is almost the same as in the previous financial year 2022-2023, but in the financial year 2023-24, $ 132.4 billion was paid for the import of crude oil. If we talk about 2022-23, then $157.5 billion was paid. This means that the Central Government has saved Rs 2.1 lakh crore in the purchase of crude oil. Now European countries are buying the same crude oil purchased from Russia as refined fuel from India at a higher price. Not only this, Indian oil refineries have captured the major market of Europe.
Apart from this, India also imports gas in liquid form called LNG. India also benefited from its purchase. In the financial year 2023-2024, the cost of importing 30.91 billion cubic meters of gas was $13.3 billion, while in the year 2022-23, the cost of importing 26.3 billion cubic meters of gas was $17.1 billion.