New Delhi: India fell to third place among global buyers of Russian fossil fuels in December 2025, after Reliance Industries and state-owned refiners sharply reduced crude oil imports, a European think tank said on Tuesday.

According to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), India’s total Russian hydrocarbon imports stood at €2.3 billion in December, down from €3.3 billion in November. Turkiye overtook India as the second-largest importer, purchasing €2.6 billion of Russian hydrocarbons, while China remained the top buyer, accounting for 48 per cent (€6 billion) of export revenues from the top five importers.

Crude oil constituted 78 per cent of India’s Russian purchases (€1.8 billion), with coal (€424 million) and oil products (€82 million) making up the remainder. India’s crude imports from Russia fell 29 per cent month-on-month, the lowest since the implementation of the price cap policy, despite a slight increase in total imports.

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The drop was driven largely by Reliance’s Jamnagar refinery, which halved its Russian crude imports in December, all sourced from Rosneft prior to the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions. State-owned refiners also cut imports by 15 per cent. Other companies, such as Indian Oil Corporation, continued to import from non-sanctioned Russian producers.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, India had become the world’s largest buyer of discounted Russian crude, dramatically increasing imports as European demand fell and Western sanctions isolated Moscow. In December, Russian crude accounted for 25 per cent of India’s total crude imports, down from 35 per cent in November.

CREA also noted the impact on exports of refined products from Russian crude. Indian, Turkiye, and Brunei refineries exported €943 million of oil products to sanctioning countries in December, with the EU (€436 million) and USA (€189 million) among the main destinations. Exports to the EU and UK fell 26 per cent and 53 per cent respectively, while shipments to Australia rose 9 per cent and exports to the US surged 121 per cent.

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China maintained its position as the largest buyer of Russian fossil fuels, with crude making up 60 per cent (€3.6 billion) of its purchases, followed by coal and pipeline gas. Seaborne crude imports increased 23 per cent month-on-month, driven by higher ESPO-grade crude, while Urals-grade imports rose 15 per cent.

The EU ranked fourth (€1.3 billion), half of which was LNG, followed by Saudi Arabia (€328 million) in fifth place. Hungary emerged as the fourth-largest single-country buyer of Russian fossil fuels.