India will buy oil from anyone who offers the ‘lowest possible prices’ – minister

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NEW DELHI -India will buy oil from all sources that offer it at the “lowest possible prices”, the country’s oil minister told broadcaster ET Now on Wednesday.

India has been buying crude oil from Russia, which is now its top oil supplier, at discounted prices since the west imposed import curbs following its invasion of Ukraine last year.

“We are very clear in our minds that we will buy oil from wherever we can get it as long as it is delivered to our point of importation at our ports at the lowest possible price,” Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said.

India, the world’s third-biggest oil importer and consumer, gets more than 80% of its oil from overseas.

Asked about rupee trade with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the minister said that the transactions in the oil sector were “very minimum”.

The two countries had agreed to facilitate trade in rupees instead of dollars in July.

“We have a rupee-dirham arrangement with the UAE but the transactions in the oil sector are very minimum,” he said.