RoydadNaft –  India’s three-year buying spree of discounted Russian crude is set to come to a screeching halt next month, with imports expected to drop to their lowest level since at least 2022 as refiners scramble to comply with tightening Western sanctions.

Trade and refining sources told Reuters that Russian oil arrivals in India are projected to fall to just 600,000–650,000 barrels per day in December — a sharp decline from an estimated 1.87 million bpd in November and down nearly two-thirds from peak levels seen earlier this year.

The dramatic slowdown follows a barrage of new measures from the United States, European Union, and Britain aimed at choking Moscow’s war chest. Washington’s latest sanctions, which directly target Russia’s two largest producers Rosneft and Lukoil, gave buyers until November 21 to wind down transactions. Separately, the EU has imposed a January 21 cutoff after which it will refuse fuels produced from Russian crude.

Heightened bank scrutiny has left even state-owned Indian refiners “extremely cautious,” one source said.

Most private and smaller state refiners — including Mangalore Refinery, Hindustan Petroleum, and HPCL-Mittal — have already halted Russian purchases entirely. Indian Oil Corp and Bharat Petroleum have publicly pledged to buy only from non-sanctioned entities.

Rosneft-backed Nayara Energy continues processing exclusively Russian crude, while Reliance Industries, operator of the world’s largest refining complex, said it will only handle cargoes it had pre-committed before the October 22 sanction announcement and will route any post-November 20 arrivals to its domestic-market refinery.

The November surge appears to have been a last-gasp stock-building exercise ahead of the deadlines, compounded by refiners rushing to secure Russian barrels that could still be processed into fuels for the European market before next year’s full embargo on Russian-origin products kicks in.

With Russian supply suddenly constrained, Indian refiners have pivoted to U.S. crude (October imports hit their highest since June 2024) and are scouring Middle Eastern and African grades.

The shift comes as New Delhi faces growing U.S. pressure to diversify away from Moscow after Washington doubled tariffs on certain Indian exports to 50%, explicitly linking the move to India’s continued purchase of Russian oil.

For nearly three years, India — along with China — kept Russia’s oil revenues flowing despite Western efforts to isolate Moscow economically. December’s precipitous drop signals that the sanctions net, long criticized as porous, may finally be tightening.