28 Mar , 2022 By : Kanchan Joshi
Rameswar Teli, the junior oil minister, on Monday said that India is not considering buying oil from Russia using Indian rupees, after Western countries imposed sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
Addressing the parliament, the junior oil minister said, "Oil public sector undertakings neither have any contract nor is any such proposal under consideration from Russia or any other country for purchase of crude oil in Indian rupees."
Meanwhile, crude oil futures on Monday dropped by 2.77 per cent to Rs8,379 per barrel as participants trimmed their positions on low demand.
On the Multi Commodity Exchange, crude oil for April delivery fell by Rs239 or 2.77 per cent to Rs8,379 per barrel with a business volume of 7,010 lots.
Globally, West Texas Intermediate crude oil was trading 3.90 per cent down at USD 109.46 per barrel and Brent crude was quoting 3.46 per cent lower at USD 116.48 per barrel in New York.
GAIL pays for Russian LNG imports in US dollar
Earlier on Sunday, GAIL (India) Limited said that it continues to pay for the liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports from Russian Gas industry company Gazprom in US dollars and will seek exchange rate neutrality in case payments are sought in any other currency such as Euro.
GAIL has a deal to receive 2.5 million tonnes of LNG annually on a delivered basis from Russia's Gazprom. This translates into 3 to 4 cargoes or ship loads of super-cooled natural gas every month.
The contract with Gazprom provides for making payments in US dollars. Payments become due 5-7 days after the delivery of the LNG cargo. The last payment was made on March 23, which was in US dollars.
An LNG shipload was received on Friday and its payment will be due in early April. There is no indication that the payment for this cargo will be in a currency other than US dollar, according to a PTI report.
"So far, the US dollar payment continues without any problem," another source said. "Gazprom has so far not communicated anything to GAIL about change in payment mode."
It further said that the last payment was settled through State Bank of India (SBI) - the bank that has been used to pay for imports from Gazprom since the start of supplies in June 2018.
GAIL, they said, has so far not received any written communication from Gazprom for change in the currency for settling the payments.
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