OREANDA-NEWS  The Indian authorities decided to extend the tax on the export of petroleum products, introduced in July last year, while adding an obligation for oil companies to sell on the domestic market the equivalent of 50 percent of their exports of gasoline and 30 percent of diesel fuel. This is reported by Reuters with reference to its own sources.

The reason for this decision was the active purchases by private operators of oil refineries (refineries) of cheap Russian fuel and its further resale to Europe at a much higher price.

Because of this, the companies significantly increased their profits and stopped supplying enough fuel to the domestic market. As a result, state producers began to lose income, which had to fill the deficit.

After the new decision comes into force, the incomes of private companies will decrease somewhat, but state-owned enterprises, on the contrary, will increase profits. "Why should only state—owned companies suffer when all Indian refiners buy Russian oil at a discount?" a representative of the Indian government explained to the agency. Officially, the extension of restrictive measures, according to Reuters, will be announced next week.

In early March, Bloomberg reported that India was buying Russian oil well below the established ceiling of $60 per barrel. After the introduction of Western sanctions, the country, along with China, became the largest buyer of Russian oil.

However, in the case of petroleum products, which are also subject to embargoes and price ceilings, the situation is complicated by the fact that countries have their own raw material processing facilities. Against this background, the number of ships with diesel fuel from Russia remaining at sea waiting for unloading has increased to the maximum since 2016, when the relevant observations were launched.