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By your reasoning, Germany and Italy are siding with Russia too, by buying Russian oil and gas. Physician, heal thyself. First let the EU stop buying Russian o

By your reasoning, Germany and Italy are siding with Russia too, by buying Russian oil and gas. Physician, heal thyself. First let the EU stop buying Russian oil and gas, and then they can preach to others.

squarefoot 4y ago
Did you read the article? "Despite U.S.-led efforts to isolate Russia’s economy and hasten the war’s end, India has chosen to increase imports of Russian oil ten-fold, while increasing that of fertilizer eight-fold. Together with China, Indian purchases of Russian goods have largely negated the effect of transatlantic energy sanctions, and India further funds Russia’s war machine by purchasing big-ticket items, such as submarines, tanks, fighter aircraft and surface-to-air missile systems — a full half of the country’s arms imports come from Russia." This is completely different from what is happening in the EU, which reduced by a lot the imports from Russia of gas, oil and other goods. My gas/electricity bills more than doubled because of it, still I'm all for cutting any support of Putin, but there's a line between that and economic suicide that at the moment can't be crossed. Ideally, we'll get there in some time; India doesn't even show they aim at that in the long run. Also, I used the word "silently" which makes a world of difference. Moreover, if you're from India and take my post as a personal attack on your nation or nationality, you are way off track.
- mrphoebs 4y ago
  The article reads like a self serving western narrative loosely based on cherry picked facts. India has clearly stated it will buy cheap oil where ever it's available on the market, there is nothing special about russia, look up the actual quantities of oil and LNG imports from russia to india vs india's other suppliers. What made india load up on russian oil is the incredibly short-sighted and ineffective sanctions on russian oil from the west that only made russian oil available at a discount. EU didn't stop buying russian gas, russia and the nord stream pipeline saboteurs didn't give them a choice. And if you want to talk about war profiteering look to the profits of american oil and LNG companies that are replacing EU's supplies and rift it's causing between EU and USA. Energy is the lifeblood of any human society/economy, A country of 1.4 billion with a per capita GDP that india has cannot afford to take a hypocritical moral Highground when doing so in an environment with rising energy prices means people starve. Not trying to defend India here, I don't think there is anything to defend. I don't think people truly comprehend how deeply rooted agenda driven narratives are in western media. I mean it's not unique to western media but the diversity of narratives in the west unlike the sanctioned narrative in china gives people in the west this false illusion that the lens their media is seeing the world through must be accurate(it isn't). Another agenda driven narrative recently being put forward is Saudi Arabia siding with russia over the US. Why? because OPEC didn't follow US's lead on market manipulation (price caps, crude supply) and dared to think and act independently.
- 1024core 4y ago
  I read the article. And, unlike the blatantly biased article, I used my brain cells too. "India has chosen to increase imports of Russian oil ten-fold,..." These numbers mean nothing if we don't know the absolute numbers. So, for example, if India was buying <0.1% of oil from Russia earlier, it would now by buying < 1%... In any case: India has slowed down purchases from Russia now: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Why-India-Is-Suddenly-Buying-Less-Russian-Crude.html https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Why-India-Is-Suddenly-... They have always maintained that they have a large population to support, and will go for the cheapest option out there. BTW: there is nothing stopping countries like Germany and USA from opening their checkbooks and subsidizing Indian oil purchases to help them buy more Saudi or African oil. Nothing. Don't expect a country with 1/10 the GDP of the US to harm its economy to fight someone else's war.
  - rsj_hn 4y ago
    India now gets about 12-18% of its oil from Russia (depends on how you count "indirect" purchases). The problem with embargoing Russian oil is that they are the no. 2 exporter (about 11% of Global exports). Basically Russia produces about 10-11 million barrels per day (mbd) but only uses about 3 mbd domestically, allowing them to export the remaining 7-8 million. The US produces more, but it consumes most of what it produces, leaving it as the No. 3 exporter, and that number is falling as we pull back on oil exploration and investment, making Russia and Saudi Arabia more important each year to the global oil market. Demand for oil is relatively inelastic -- e.g. estimates are something like -.05 in the short term and -.03 in the long term. So just disappearing Russian oil from the market would result in a ~220% increase in oil prices (a very rough estimate, but a ballpark) -- oil would cost roughly $200. That would destroy the world economy and cause mass starvation as well. So what happens is that an embargo is created and the supply drops, and prices go up, by, say, $20, and then Russia comes along and says "We'll give you a $15 discount if you buy our oil". Then there are lots of buyers, of which India is only one, that agree to this. The end result is that Russia makes $5 more per barrel than before the embargo, but they sell a bit less oil. Everyone else pays a bit more. As this happens, word gets out that Russia is selling oil for $15 below market and the world price falls. As the price falls, the discount narrows. Presently, the discount is $5 (and it's still falling). In the same way, the US and Europe continue to buy Russian oil, often laundered through third parties. But they all pretend that they have moved off of Russian oil, even though everyone knows it's just gone through some shell companies. There are now attempts to set a price cap on Russian oil by the G7 nations -- Russia sells about 3 mbd to G7 nations now. But again, this same process will happen. Russia will say "no, I won't sell to you at this low price", at which point the G7 nations have to get their oil from somewhere else, and they outbid existing buyers so the price goes up, then Russia offers a discount that's a little bit lower than the price increase, and prices fall down a bit, but not all the way to what they were before. Russia makes more money per barrel, but sells a bit less. Everyone else pays more per barrel. Many don't remember the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s, but basically OPEC announced it was refusing to sell oil to Western powers in order to punish them for supporting Israel in the 1973 war. At that time, people understood that not being able to buy OPEC oil would cause them to suffer, but that knowledge appears to have been lost, and now we are imposing self-embargoes of oil against the No 2 supplier. But the world is a lot bigger now, with most of Russia's oil being sold to Asia, and Asia still understands the basic supply-demand relationships that the West appears to have forgotten. You can't expect the world to voluntarily agree to $200 oil. They will continue to buy from the lowest bidder, even if the G7 nations self-impose a higher price for their own purchases. All these attempts to prevent two nations from trading in commodities -- e.g. banning the insurance of Russian oil in London -- don't actually work, as both China and Russia now offer insurance on Russian oil and also maintain their own fleet of tankers and there is a vast network of pipelines running across central asia. The result will again be that the market share of London insurers will fall as ships are insured elsewhere. The economic share of shipping in Europe will fall as other nations' fleets are used, etc. Oil is just too important to the functioning of the global economy for nations to agree to a doubling of its price.

squarefoot 4y ago

Did you read the article? "Despite U.S.-led efforts to isolate Russia’s economy and hasten the war’s end, India has chosen to increase imports of Russian oil ten-fold, while increasing that of fertilizer eight-fold. Together with China, Indian purchases of Russian goods have largely negated the effect of transatlantic energy sanctions, and India further funds Russia’s war machine by purchasing big-ticket items, such as submarines, tanks, fighter aircraft and surface-to-air missile systems — a full half of the country’s arms imports come from Russia." This is completely different from what is happening in the EU, which reduced by a lot the imports from Russia of gas, oil and other goods. My gas/electricity bills more than doubled because of it, still I'm all for cutting any support of Putin, but there's a line between that and economic suicide that at the moment can't be crossed. Ideally, we'll get there in some time; India doesn't even show they aim at that in the long run. Also, I used the word "silently" which makes a world of difference. Moreover, if you're from India and take my post as a personal attack on your nation or nationality, you are way off track.

mrphoebs 4y ago
The article reads like a self serving western narrative loosely based on cherry picked facts. India has clearly stated it will buy cheap oil where ever it's available on the market, there is nothing special about russia, look up the actual quantities of oil and LNG imports from russia to india vs india's other suppliers. What made india load up on russian oil is the incredibly short-sighted and ineffective sanctions on russian oil from the west that only made russian oil available at a discount. EU didn't stop buying russian gas, russia and the nord stream pipeline saboteurs didn't give them a choice. And if you want to talk about war profiteering look to the profits of american oil and LNG companies that are replacing EU's supplies and rift it's causing between EU and USA. Energy is the lifeblood of any human society/economy, A country of 1.4 billion with a per capita GDP that india has cannot afford to take a hypocritical moral Highground when doing so in an environment with rising energy prices means people starve. Not trying to defend India here, I don't think there is anything to defend. I don't think people truly comprehend how deeply rooted agenda driven narratives are in western media. I mean it's not unique to western media but the diversity of narratives in the west unlike the sanctioned narrative in china gives people in the west this false illusion that the lens their media is seeing the world through must be accurate(it isn't). Another agenda driven narrative recently being put forward is Saudi Arabia siding with russia over the US. Why? because OPEC didn't follow US's lead on market manipulation (price caps, crude supply) and dared to think and act independently.
1024core 4y ago
I read the article. And, unlike the blatantly biased article, I used my brain cells too. "India has chosen to increase imports of Russian oil ten-fold,..." These numbers mean nothing if we don't know the absolute numbers. So, for example, if India was buying <0.1% of oil from Russia earlier, it would now by buying < 1%... In any case: India has slowed down purchases from Russia now: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Why-India-Is-Suddenly-Buying-Less-Russian-Crude.html https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Why-India-Is-Suddenly-... They have always maintained that they have a large population to support, and will go for the cheapest option out there. BTW: there is nothing stopping countries like Germany and USA from opening their checkbooks and subsidizing Indian oil purchases to help them buy more Saudi or African oil. Nothing. Don't expect a country with 1/10 the GDP of the US to harm its economy to fight someone else's war.
- rsj_hn 4y ago
  India now gets about 12-18% of its oil from Russia (depends on how you count "indirect" purchases). The problem with embargoing Russian oil is that they are the no. 2 exporter (about 11% of Global exports). Basically Russia produces about 10-11 million barrels per day (mbd) but only uses about 3 mbd domestically, allowing them to export the remaining 7-8 million. The US produces more, but it consumes most of what it produces, leaving it as the No. 3 exporter, and that number is falling as we pull back on oil exploration and investment, making Russia and Saudi Arabia more important each year to the global oil market. Demand for oil is relatively inelastic -- e.g. estimates are something like -.05 in the short term and -.03 in the long term. So just disappearing Russian oil from the market would result in a ~220% increase in oil prices (a very rough estimate, but a ballpark) -- oil would cost roughly $200. That would destroy the world economy and cause mass starvation as well. So what happens is that an embargo is created and the supply drops, and prices go up, by, say, $20, and then Russia comes along and says "We'll give you a $15 discount if you buy our oil". Then there are lots of buyers, of which India is only one, that agree to this. The end result is that Russia makes $5 more per barrel than before the embargo, but they sell a bit less oil. Everyone else pays a bit more. As this happens, word gets out that Russia is selling oil for $15 below market and the world price falls. As the price falls, the discount narrows. Presently, the discount is $5 (and it's still falling). In the same way, the US and Europe continue to buy Russian oil, often laundered through third parties. But they all pretend that they have moved off of Russian oil, even though everyone knows it's just gone through some shell companies. There are now attempts to set a price cap on Russian oil by the G7 nations -- Russia sells about 3 mbd to G7 nations now. But again, this same process will happen. Russia will say "no, I won't sell to you at this low price", at which point the G7 nations have to get their oil from somewhere else, and they outbid existing buyers so the price goes up, then Russia offers a discount that's a little bit lower than the price increase, and prices fall down a bit, but not all the way to what they were before. Russia makes more money per barrel, but sells a bit less. Everyone else pays more per barrel. Many don't remember the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s, but basically OPEC announced it was refusing to sell oil to Western powers in order to punish them for supporting Israel in the 1973 war. At that time, people understood that not being able to buy OPEC oil would cause them to suffer, but that knowledge appears to have been lost, and now we are imposing self-embargoes of oil against the No 2 supplier. But the world is a lot bigger now, with most of Russia's oil being sold to Asia, and Asia still understands the basic supply-demand relationships that the West appears to have forgotten. You can't expect the world to voluntarily agree to $200 oil. They will continue to buy from the lowest bidder, even if the G7 nations self-impose a higher price for their own purchases. All these attempts to prevent two nations from trading in commodities -- e.g. banning the insurance of Russian oil in London -- don't actually work, as both China and Russia now offer insurance on Russian oil and also maintain their own fleet of tankers and there is a vast network of pipelines running across central asia. The result will again be that the market share of London insurers will fall as ships are insured elsewhere. The economic share of shipping in Europe will fall as other nations' fleets are used, etc. Oil is just too important to the functioning of the global economy for nations to agree to a doubling of its price.