India and China have stepped up purchases and are importing record volumes of Russian crude. some Chinese state giants haven’t ramped up imports of spot cargoes from Russia despite steep discounts. China registered in April its first annual increase in crude oil imports. While Europe shuns Russian oil amid sanctions and expectations of an oil embargo on Russian oil imports, India and China have stepped up purchases and are importing record volumes of Russian crude, according to data from energy analytics company Kpler cited by Bloomberg on Friday. Russia had up to 79 million barrels of crude either traveling on tankers or held in floating storage over the past week, Kpler’s estimates have shown. That’s more than double the 27 million barrels of crude Russia had seaborne in February, just before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Before the war, Russia was primarily selling its crude to Europe, but this is […]