The Trinamool Congress has alleged that two Gujarat-based companies have made enormous profits from Russian oil imports and are selling them to the European Union at exorbitant rates. In a letter to Foreign Minister S Jaishankar, Trinamool’s Rajya Sabha MP Jawahar Sircar has sought clarification on this issue. Sircar has also raised concerns about an unknown company, Gatik Ship Management, which is single-handedly transporting half of the oil coming from Russia.
Sircar cited two news reports published on ‘ft.com’ and ‘The Wire’. According to FT, a Mumbai-based company called Gatik Ship Management purchased 54 oil tankers last year to profit from Russian oil. Sircar referred to the report, stating that out of 83 million barrels of “crude oil and oil products” imported at Indian ports, Gatik Ship Management has transported more than 50 percent. Not much information is available on Gatik Ship Management, not even on the Ministry of Corporate Affairs website.
Sircar has also mentioned the report of Finland’s think tank CREA, which says despite many countries banning the purchase of Russian oil, oil from Russia is reaching European countries via a roundabout way from five countries, including India. In its report, CREA has used the word “laundromat” for those five nations from which European countries are buying large quantities of oil. Apart from India, these include China, Turkey, UAE, and Singapore.
India’s dependence on crude oil imports has historically been on OPEC member countries. However, since the war between Russia and Ukraine, the situation has changed. Russia was a minor oil exporter to India before the start of the Ukraine war. Before March 2022, India imported only 1 percent of crude oil from Russia, whereas in a single year, this figure has reached 34 percent. It is unclear whether this includes re-exported crude. Currently, Russia is India’s number one oil supplier, exporting around 1.64 million barrels per day.
Sircar has expressed concern that despite importing cheap oil in this manner, the common man isn’t benefiting. Instead, two private refineries in Gujarat have earned significant profits by re-exporting the imported oil, even as many Western countries criticize India for purchasing Russian oil in the middle of the war on Ukraine.
