India Russian oil imports hit a record in July. Russian crude made up 50.83% of everything India bought 2.47 million barrels a day, up 62.4% on last year.
Kpler, a firm that tracks tankers by satellite, puts it higher still: 2.8 million barrels a day, or 55.5% of the total.
The two counts differ because each measures cargoes on a different basis. Either way, Russia is now India’s largest supplier by a wide margin. Iraq and Saudi Arabia are fighting over what is left.
Why the barrels come from Moscow
The reason is not politics. It is availability.
Indian refiners were actually cutting Russian purchases back in January. They wanted to avoid US tariffs while India negotiated a trade deal with Washington.
Then the Middle East stopped working as a reliable route. Ships came under threat at the Strait of Hormuz, and later at the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea. Russian cargoes were the ones that still arrived on time. So the refiners went back.
Here is the part that matters. Discounts on Urals, Russia’s main grade, have narrowed sharply. Indian buyers no longer get the bargain they once did. They keep buying anyway.
That tells you this is now about reliable supply, not cheap prices. Reliance and Indian Oil have already booked September cargoes, because August volumes sold out.
By late August, Kpler had Russia’s share easing to about 43%. Still, one month is not a reversal.
What else India is buying
Oil sits inside a record import bill. India bought $76.22 billion of goods in July, up 17.5%.
Crude oil — up 17.6%. The biggest line by value. India imports about 85% of the oil it uses, so the bill rises with the global price even if no extra barrels arrive. Brent has traded above $105 since the Iran war.
Electronic goods — up 46%. Chips, components and phones. Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal points to rising incomes as the cause, not any policy change.
Fertilisers — up 55.4%. Pulses — up 72.8%. Farm inputs and food staples. These cost far less than oil. But they are what a government buys when it is worried about food prices.
Gold — up 4.8%. The quiet one, and deliberately so. Gold is India’s second-largest import, at roughly $72 billion last financial year. In May the government raised the import duty from 6% to 15%. Modi then publicly asked households to hold off buying. Silver imports fell 66.1% in July. The duty is working.
The export side is having a record year too
India sold $44.24 billion of goods in July. That is the highest figure for any month in its history, a 19.6% jump, and the fastest growth in nearly four years.
The trade gap still widened, to $31.98 billion. That sounds contradictory, but it is simple arithmetic. A deficit measures the distance between two numbers. India’s import bill was already about 70% larger than its export bill, so even fast export growth cannot close it.
The same month, but $15 billion
Some outlets reported the July deficit as $15.03 billion rather than $32 billion. Both are correct.
The larger figure covers goods only. But India also sells services — software, business process work, consulting and it is very good at this. July services exports came to an estimated $35.89 billion against $18.94 billion of imports.
That is a surplus of nearly $17 billion. Add it in, and the total deficit drops to $15.03 billion.
In short, India buys physical things and sells brainpower. That surplus is the cushion under every alarming headline about the import bill.
What to watch next
The US Senate has passed a law imposing 100% tariffs on buyers of Russian oil.
India’s cheap-energy arrangement sits directly under that threat.
And the timing is awkward. A February deal cut US tariffs on Indian goods from a peak of 50% to 18%, better than the 20% facing Vietnam and Bangladesh. India spent a year winning that back. The oil trade could undo it.
Meanwhile, look at where the exports are going. Shipments to Singapore rose 83.7% in July. Malaysia 73%. Sri Lanka 72.5%. Japan 65.3%. Exports to the United States grew 12.9% solid, but no longer the main story.
India is quietly building a customer base that does not depend on Washington’s mood. It is still buying its energy from a supplier that does.
