New Delhi: Reliance Industries Ltd, till recently India’s biggest buyer of Russian oil, Tuesday said it has not received any Russian barrels in almost three weeks and none are expected in January.
On November 20, 2025, Reliance had said it has halted the use of Russian crude at its export-only refinery in Jamnagar, Gujarat, as the company moves to comply with European Union sanctions.
Prior to that, Reliance was India’s largest buyer of Russian oil, which it processes and turns into fuel, such as petrol and diesel, at its giant oil refining complex at Jamnagar.
The complex is made up of two refineries — one SEZ unit from which fuels are exported to the European Union, the US, and other markets, and an older unit that primarily caters to the domestic market.
The European Union — a big market for Reliance — has imposed wide-ranging sanctions targeting Russia’s energy revenues, including measures that restrict the import and sale of fuels produced from Russian crude oil.
To comply with these, Reliance had stopped processing Russian crude oil at its only-for-exports (SEZ) refinery.
On Tuesday, it called a Bloomberg report claiming “three vessels laden with Russian oil are headed for Reliance’s Jamnagar refinery as “blatantly untrue”.
“Reliance Industries’ Jamangar refinery has not received any cargo of Russian oil at its refinery in the past three weeks approx. and is not expecting any Russian crude oil deliveries in January,” the company said in a statement.
The Bloomberg report had cited data analytics firm Kpler to say at least three tankers, laden with nearly 2.2 million barrels of urals (a grade of Russian crude), were headed towards the Sikka port — through which Jamnagar refining complex sources a bulk of its crude imports.
However, Sikka is also the port that is used by non-Reliance companies.
Industry sources said the three cargoes cited in the report were probably for Bina refinery of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) and not Reliance.
“We have stopped importing Russian crude oil into our SEZ refinery with effect from November 20,” a Reliance spokesperson had said in a statement on November 20, 2025.
“From December 1, all product exports from the SEZ refinery will be obtained from non-Russian crude oil.”
Reliance purchased about half of the 1.7-1.8 million barrels per day of discounted Russian crude shipped to India prior to that.
India became the second-largest buyer of discounted Russian seaborne crude after the Ukraine war began in 2022, drawing criticism from western nations that have imposed sanctions on Russia’s energy sector, arguing that oil revenues help finance Moscow’s war effort.
US President Donald Trump Sunday warned that the United States could raise tariffs on India if New Delhi fails to curb purchases of Russian oil.
PTI
