00:00Between June and September this year, there was a drop of 45% of Russian oil imports by India's state-owned refineries.
00:09But what do you anticipate about the private sector?
00:12Do you think that private sector will also try to look at these geopolitical realities?
00:17See, I think some amount of recalibration from Russia was of course expected,
00:24given that the upsurge in India's buying of Russian oil had a lot to do with the kind of discounts that Russia at one point was offering India.
00:35So once those discounts ended and once the volatility in the global energy market also subsided to a certain extent,
00:45it was very clear that India would revert back and recalibrate its supplies.
00:52And any sensible buyer would diversify in this day and age.
00:58So, and India has always done that.
01:00So I think it was, it has been, I don't think the decline has as much to do with the US, partly to do with the US.
01:08But I don't think it is driven largely by what Mr. Trump is saying.
01:12And in any case, Mr. Trump was saying, his statement was about here and now.
01:18He seemed to be suggesting that he just had a call with Mr. Modi recently and Mr. Modi has said that he would be,
01:24you know, stopping oil from Russia, which I think India has made it clear that that is not the case.
01:31And oil's energy supplies in India will be determined largely by India's own political economy
01:38because it's a very important ingredient in our economic growth and any inflationary pressure on energy prices
01:46would have a devastating impact for a large part of our population.
01:50So any government in India cannot afford to, you know, change the dynamic of the energy market and make it more volatile.
01:58So I think largely what we are witnessing is that there has been relative decline from Russia, which was to be expected.
02:05But we still have to wait and watch and see how it stabilizes because energy markets are still in flux.
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