Saudi Arabia's steep cut in LPG benchmark prices has pushed India's household LPG underrecoveries to their lowest level in over two years, slashing oil companies' losses from Rs 200-250 per cylinder last year to about Rs 20-40 now.
How the UN's flagship climate summit lost its direction and what's at stake.
Sanctioning Russian oil would have led to a sharp surge in oil prices to above $80 per barrel levels, which would impact pump prices in the US ahead of midterm elections next year.
India's new climate pledge to the UN could be weakened by its growing use of coal, even as the country plans a 2035 roadmap to cut emissions and boost clean energy.
India's brittle energy security is inextricably linked to two opposing paradigms - fossil fuels, and the transition to green energy. The first powers the present; the second paves the way for Viksit Bharat in 2047.
India's power sector CO2 emissions fell in H1 2025 for the first time in nearly 50 years (outside the pandemic), thanks to record renewable growth and lower coal use from cooler, wetter weather.
The government has no say in where the country's refiners source oil from because these are commercial transactions.
'Geopolitically and diplomatically it's a very difficult situation for India.'
India, the biggest contributor to world demand for oil, will bring into effect in an overhaul of its drilling policy. This comes after more than a year of preparation and will boost the exploration and development of India's oil and gas sector along with increased participation by foreign drillers
Chinese import tariffs have unwittingly come to India's assistance to help boost imports of US liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) at rates cheaper than what it pays for supplies from West Asia, according to industry sources and shipping data.
India's purchase of US crude oil has picked up in 2025 and could easily double their previous levels, government officials said on Wednesday. The surge comes in the wake of the then-incoming Donald Trump administration's announcement that it would consider hiking tariffs on a reciprocal basis, and pushed some countries, especially those with large trade surpluses with the US, to buy more of its energy.
'We are not asking for incentives, but at least taxation can be aligned such that the rupee tax on consumers remains the same.'
'There is no linkage as far as the Indian power-generating business is concerned.'
'Geopolitical stability could remove the crude oil risk premium.'
Russian shipments averaged 1.67 million barrels per day in January compared to 1.48 million bpd in December and 1.53 million bpd a year earlier.
However, copious oil supplies amid growing global output and slowing Chinese oil consumption will put India in a better bargaining position with Gulf suppliers.
Talks on global climate finance virtually ground to a halt last week at COP29, the annual United Nations (UN) Climate Change event in Baku, Azerbaijan, as the developed world, led by the European Union (EU), and developing countries including India, Brazil, South Africa, and a clutch of island nations and African countries faced a wide chasm between their expectations. This has raised doubts about whether an agreement can be reached this week or whether talks will spill over to COP30, to be held next year in Benem, Brazil.
State-owned Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Ltd (ISPRL), which operates India's strategic crude oil storage, will make awards by December to lease around 1 million tons of crude oil storage space (7.3 million barrels) at two of the country's three existing Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPRs), around a fifth of the total SPR capacity. This will enable the refilling of crude caverns even as escalating hostilities in the Gulf threaten disruptions in crude supplies, two industry sources said.
A resurgence in Saudi Arabian supplies of crude oil to India coupled with an attack on an Iraqi tanker in August carrying crude to Europe may result in improved bargaining power for India with West Asian and Russian suppliers for winter supplies. Shipments of Saudi oil rebounded in September from August, surging to the highest since March while Russian oil shipments rose marginally as Saudi Arabia tried to claw back market share in Asia, according to industry sources and ship tracking data.
Even as Russia and West Asia have been slugging it out for market share in India to sell their crude oil, the US is quietly making its moves on the sidelines. The US has doubled its share of the Indian crude market in the past few months, according to industry sources and ship-tracking data. Some of the increase in America's market share may have come at the expense of Russia, India's biggest crude oil supplier, said industry sources.
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