India leads in ‘laundering’ Russian oil and selling to Europe: report

Source: The post is based on the article “India leads in ‘laundering’ Russian oil and selling to Europe: report” published in The Hindu on 1st May 2023

What is the News?

A report by Finland-based Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) has found that European countries that banned Russian oil imports are instead importing huge amounts of oil commodities from India, China, United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Turkey, therefore, qualifying them as laundromats. 

What are Laundromat countries?

The report has categorized India, China, Turkey, the UAE, and Singapore as laundromat countries.

These countries are buying Russian oil and selling processed products to European countries, thus side-stepping European sanctions against Russia.

This means that European countries are simply substituting oil products they previously bought directly from Russia, with the same products now “whitewashed” in third countries and bought from them at a premium.

Among these so-called “laundromat” countries, India remained the highest global consumer of seaborne Russian crude and is ahead of all others in the export of crude products to these price cap coalition countries, which include the EU, G-7 countries, Australia and Japan.

For instance, India’s diesel exports tripled to ~1,600,000 barrels per day in March 2023 compared to a year ago, making diesel one of the largest components of India-EU trade.

Most oil products from India were being exported from two ports in Gujarat: 1) the Sikka port that services the Reliance-owned Jamnagar refinery and 2) the Vadinar port that ships oil products.