India State-Owned Energy Firm Considers Raising Stakes In Russian Oil Fields Amid Ukraine Invasion

While countries worldwide have imposed sanctions and withdrawn trade deals with Russia after it invaded Ukraine, India seems to be taking advantage of the situation to ramp up its energy assets.

What Happened: According to an Economic Times report, state-owned Oil & Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) is mulling options of more bids for multiple Russian oil and gas fields from Western companies.

Its first bid for British oil giant Shell PLC's SHEL 50% stake in Siberia's Salym fields was not accepted.

See Also: Russia Now 4th Largest Oil Supplier To India As Cheap Oil Proves Lucrative, US Share Halves

Unnamed sources told the news outlet, "the war will not last forever, nor will the sanctions. We must move to secure our energy supplies."

"We understand the risk, and we are willing to take the risk."

The report indicated that ONGC is planning to bid for Shell's 27.5% interest in the Sakhalin-II project and Exxon Mobil Corp's XOM 30% stake in the Sakhalin-I project.

Other Indian state-owned companies such as Bharat Petroleum, Indian Oil, and Oil India also discussed evaluating and buying BP PLC's BP 20% stake in Russian energy giant Rosneft.

Why It Matters: India has chosen to abstain from taking a stand in the Russia-Ukraine war, although the Narendra Modi-led government has supplied medical help to Ukraine and asked Russia to stop the ongoing conflict.

Russia in April became the fourth-largest oil exporter to India as low prices spurred demand from one of the world's largest oil consumers and importers. During the same period, African oil imports declined to about 6% in April from 14.5% in March, while U.S. oil was almost halved to 3%.

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