Price cap on Russian oil will not affect India - country's oil minister

NEW DELHI. Dec 5 (Interfax) - India is not concerned about Western countries imposing a price cap on Russian oil, the country's Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said when signaling that India intends to continue deliveries of the energy resource from Russia.

"We will buy oil from the right person," Puri said in an interview with India's BQ Prime news portal.

When asked by a reporter about the impact the price cap would have on India, the minister replied "Zero".

According to Puri, India currently buys oil from 39 countries. Among the largest suppliers of the energy resource to the country are Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Russia. Meantime, oil supplies from Russia previously accounted for an insignificant share of total oil imports and increased sharply after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine in February.

The European Union's decision to impose an embargo on oil supplies from Russia came into force as of Monday, and it also provides for a price cap mechanism that involves a ban on providing services to transport Russian oil by sea, as well as on providing insurance, brokerage services and financing operations by companies in the EU, except for the sale of energy resources at a price not exceeding a certain cap at $60 per barrel. A similar ban has been introduced by the G7 countries of the UK, Germany, Italy, Canada, France, Japan, and the United States.