India is in talks with Moscow about increasing oil imports from Russia in an effort to keep spiraling prices in check, India’s petroleum minister told Parliament this week. The move comes as New Delhi is also striving to preserve its relationship with Moscow, its biggest supplier of weapons, at a time when India faces an aggressive China on its borders.

“I myself have had a conversation with the appropriate levels of the Russian federation,” Hardeep Singh Puri, India’s minister of gas and petroleum, told lawmakers on Monday. He said the issues being discussed included insurance, freight, and payment arrangements.

India depends on imports for about 80 percent of its oil needs, with 3 percent of that coming from Russia. India’s oil and petroleum imports from Russia amount to nearly $1 billion, Alexander Novak, Russia’s deputy prime minister, said in a statement on Friday.

Reuters reported earlier that Indian officials were in talks with Russia to import crude oil at a discounted price and that one of India’s main refineries had bought millions of barrels from the trader Vitol to be delivered in May.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/15/world/europe/india-russia-oil-imports.html