Russian energy exports to India up several dozen times - ambassador

MOSCOW. June 27 (Interfax) - Russian energy exports to India have grown dozens of times, with Indian companies buying oil and gas from Russia at prices lower than those on the global markets, Russian Ambassador to India Denis Alipov said.

"An increase by 50 times has been mentioned, as have other figures. I won't give you absolute figures, because this is a subject of nonpublic foreign trade contracts, but cooperation has grown multiple times, even dozens of times," Alipov said on the Rossiya-24 (VGTRK) television channel.

What is important is that the Indian government has allowed its companies to buy oil and gas from Russia at prices that are lower than global averages, "without passing the premium for growing energy prices to end consumers," he said.

He described prospects of Russian energy supplies to India as "good."

Russia and India are successfully settling issues related to mutual settlements and logistics in bilateral trade, "and options for settlements in national currencies and in hard currencies have been considered," he said.