‘Blatantly untrue’: Reliance refutes reports of Russian crude oil shipments to Jamnagar refinery

Reliance Industries said in a statement on Tuesday that it does not expect any Russian crude oil shipments in January and that no such cargo has reached its facilities in the last three weeks. The clarification came after a Bloomberg report claimed that at least three tankers carrying Russian crude oil had indicated a Reliance Industries Ltd refinery as their next stop.

In a post on X, the company described the report as “blatantly untrue”. It said, “Reliance Industries’s Jamnagar refinery has not received any cargo of Russian oil at its refinery in the past three weeks approx. and is not expecting any Russian crude oil deliveries in January.”

It further said, “We are deeply pained that those claiming to be at the forefront of fair journalism chose to ignore the denial by RIL of buying any Russian oil to be delivered in January and published a wrong report tarnishing our image.”

Reliance had announced in November that it would stop using Russian crude at the export-oriented section of its refinery. Since then, it has begun sourcing oil from non-sanctioned Russian producers for domestic consumption.

Earlier last year, India’s continued Russian oil imports irked US President Donald Trump, who warned of higher tariffs and possible sanctions on Indian exports. In October 2025, Trump said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had assured him that India would stop buying oil from Russia.

Jumping to this year, the US President suggested that India had cut its purchases of Russian oil to “make me happy”, and warned that Washington could raise tariffs on New Delhi “very quickly”.

India’s oil purchases from Russia rose to $3.72 billion in value in November, according to data provided by the Indian Commerce Ministry’s Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics. However, analytics firm Kpler said Indian imports from Russia fell in December. US sanctions on Russian energy companies Rosneft and Lukoil, both of which had business ties with India, are expected to affect Indian energy imports, as mentioned in an earlier HT report.

Meanwhile, India’s oil imports from the United States increased in value to $1.44 billion in November. This rise is linked to an earlier commitment by India to raise energy purchases from the US from $15 billion to $25 billion.

In November, Indian public sector oil firms signed a one-year agreement with US energy companies to import 2.2 million tonnes of Liquefied Petroleum Gas, which accounts for about 10% of India’s total LPG imports.