*India imported a record 1.652mn b/d of crude from Russia in February, the country’s latest official stats indicate. This is not only the highest ever figure from Russia, up 345,000 b/d on the previous record of 1.307mn b/d set just a month earlier, but the highest monthly volume that India has ever taken from a single country – the previous record was 1.469mn b/d from Iraq in September 2021.

*The February record is in line with figures from data intelligence firm Kpler, which recorded 1.69mn b/d of Russian crude arrivals in Indian ports for February. And the latest Kpler data have arrivals rising to a new record of 1.75mn b/d for March for a Q1 average of 1.57mn b/d, up a massive 30-fold on the year-ago figure of just 52,000 b/d (see chart 1). (CONTINUED - 690 WORDS)