FX.co ★ India becomes EU's largest supplier of refined fuels

According to Eurostat, from January to September 2023, the European Union increased the purchase of Indian oil products by 2.5 times. This allowed India to rise to second place among the top three commodity suppliers.

Estimates unveiled that during the nine months of the year, the EU imported 7.9 million tons of Indian oil products, twice exceeding the previous year’s results. Compared to 2021, imports surged by 3.3 times. In other words, EU spending on Indian oil and petroleum products soared to €6.1 billion this year compared to €3.3 billion in 2022 and €1.2 billion in 2021.

Thanks to such a jump in oil exports, India took second place among the largest EU suppliers. Only Saudi Arabia managed to outperform the country by exporting 11.7 million tons of oil products worth €8.7 billion.

France, the Netherlands, and Italy were named the largest consumers of Indian petroleum products. Thus, France increased oil purchases by 1.6 times to €1.37 billion, the Netherlands - by 1.5 times to €1.34 billion, Italy – by 2.5 times to €816 million, and Spain – by 2.3 times up to €635 million. Croatia and Latvia saw the steepest increases in imports by 13,000 times to €75 million and by 100 times to €1.5 million, respectively.

Malta also started buying oil products from India. Thus, in 2023, a total of €36.4 million was spent on refined petroleum products from India. Curiously, the Estonian government refused to import Indian oil.