Rosneft-backed Nayara Energy exported roughly 1.20 lakh tonne of petrol to Russia in August 2026 valued at around $90 million from its refinery at Vadinar in Gujarat.
Moscow imported around $132 million worth of refined petroleum products last month, of which India supplied around 70 per cent or roughly $92.50 million, said a report by Finland-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).
“India supplied 70 per cent of Russia’s oil product imports (94 per cent of its gasoline imports) in August, 120 thousand tonne of gasoline (Euro 78 million), all of it loaded at the Vadinar refinery and sold by EU-sanctioned Nayara Energy and bought by Rosneft,”said the report by CREA’s Luke Wickenden and Isaac Levi.
In August 2026, Moscow imported 172 thousand tonne of oil products (valued at Euro 114 million). Russia’s import volumes in August 2026 were more than seven times the previous monthly high that was recorded since the full-scale invasion and three times the total import volume for the whole of 2025, CREA said.
Gasoline accounted for 74 per cent of Russia’s total oil product imports in August, compared with just 6 per cent between 2023 and 2025, it added.
Rosneft holds 49.13 per cent of Nayara Energy, and Vadinar took 100 per cent of its crude from Russia in the first eight months of 2026, up from 81 per cent across 2025, the report pointed out.
“Russia is therefore paying a refinery that it partly owns to process its own crude into fuel it can no longer produce domestically, before shipping it back halfway around the world. Each cargo exported from India’s Vadinar refinery to Russia was transferred between vessels in a ship-to-ship operation at the Damietta Lightering Zone off Egypt before unloading at Russia’s Arctic port of Beloe More,” it added.
The CREA report pointed out that Russia typically imports only small volumes of refined oil products, averaging less than 5 thousand tonne per month of seaborne imports between 2023 and 2025. No cargoes of imported fuels were unloaded at Russian ports for 13 of those 36 months.
Most of Russia’s oil product imports from Ukraine’s allies consisted of gasoil and clean products from South Korea, supplying Pacific ports that are difficult to reach by other routes.
After repeated waves of Ukrainian drone strikes targeting Russia’s energy and refining infrastructure, Russia has for a while been facing severe domestic fuel shortages.
On the other hand, after two consecutive months of record-high crude oil imports from Russia, India’s shipments decreased by 24 per cent in August month-on-month, CREA said.
“Imports by all three of India’s largest Russian crude-importing refineries remained high in August: the Jamnagar refinery (fell 15 per cent M-o-M), Vadinar refinery (rose 5 per cent) and Paradip refinery (increased a minor 1 per cent),’’ it added.
The IndianOil Vadinar SMPL installation imported a significantly lower quantity of Russian crude oil in August, down 48 per cent from the prior month. Meanwhile, imports of Russian crude at smaller refineries, such as HPCL Mittal Energy (HMEL) Mundra Oil Terminal, decreased by 34 per cent month-on-month.
Published on September 13, 2026
