India makes first fuel export to EU after cutting ties with Russian oil
Illustrative photo: India exported fuel to the EU for the first time after abandoning Russian oil (Getty Images)
Indian company Reliance Industries exported aviation fuel to Europe for the first time since the EU ban on imports of Russian oil products came into force, Reuters reports.
Fuel supplies to Italy
According to ship tracking and trade sources, the Aframax-class tanker Liwa-V, chartered by Reliance, partially unloaded about 390,000 barrels of jet fuel at the Italian port of Fiumicino near Rome between February 1 and 4. This is about half of the ship's cargo.
The tanker arrived in Italy in early January, but unloading was delayed for almost three weeks. The company explained this by unfavorable weather conditions.
"The discharge has been delayed due to bad weather, the ship has already discharged substantial amount of cargo and is waiting outside the port to offload the cargo completely," says a spokesperson for Reliance Industries.
Rejection of Russian oil
India is one of the largest buyers of Russian crude oil, so the market is closely monitoring exports of refined fuel to Europe after the introduction of EU restrictions.
Reliance operates two oil refineries in Jamnagar, one of which is export-oriented.
On November 20, the company announced that it had stopped processing Russian oil at its export facility.
Reliance also emphasized that it had provided European buyers with written confirmation that there was no Russian oil in the fuel supplied to the EU.
India's exports to Europe
According to Kpler, India exported 4.1 million tons of jet fuel to Europe last year, almost three times more than in 2021. Between 2022 and 2025, the country accounted for about 15% of jet fuel imports to Europe.
At the same time, according to analysts, only one more shipment of Indian jet fuel is heading to Europe in January, and no deliveries of diesel fuel from India to the EU have been recorded since the ban.
India's relations with EU and criticism from US
In January 2026, the European Union and India signed a free trade agreement after nearly twenty years of negotiations.
Against this backdrop, the United States criticized the EU's cooperation with India in the energy sector, saying that Europe was effectively financing a war against itself.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent noted that Russian oil is being shipped to India, where it is refined and exported to Europe, where it is purchased by European countries.
India is currently gradually reducing its purchases of Russian crude oil and looking for alternative markets, as it fears secondary sanctions from the US. As a result, tankers carrying Russian oil are accumulating in large numbers at sea.
