Nayara Energy sent 1.20 lakh tonne of petrol to Russia in August

Rosneft-backed Nayara Energy shipped about 1.20 lakh tonne of petrol to Russia in August 2026 from its Vadinar refinery in Gujarat, a consignment valued at roughly $90 million.

Russia imported refined petroleum products worth around $132 million last month, with India contributing close to 70 per cent — approximately $92.50 million — according to a report by the 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 CREA report authored by Luke Wickenden and Isaac Levi.

In August 2026, Moscow brought in 172 thousand tonne of oil products (worth Euro 114 million). CREA said Russia’s August 2026 import volumes were more than seven times the earlier post-invasion monthly peak and three times the total imports recorded for all of 2025.

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Gasoline made up 74 per cent of Russia’s overall oil product imports in August, compared with only 6 per cent during 2023 to 2025, the report added.

Rosneft owns 49.13 per cent of Nayara Energy, and the Vadinar refinery sourced 100 per cent of its crude from Russia in the first eight months of 2026, up from 81 per cent over 2025, CREA noted.

“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,” the report said.

CREA also highlighted that Russia generally imports only limited quantities of refined products, averaging under 5 thousand tonne per month in seaborne imports between 2023 and 2025. In 13 of those 36 months, no imported fuel cargoes were unloaded at Russian ports.

Most of Russia’s oil product imports from countries aligned with Ukraine were made up of gasoil and other clean products from South Korea, serving Pacific ports that are hard to access via alternative routes.

Following multiple waves of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia’s energy and refining facilities, the country has been dealing with acute domestic fuel shortages for some time.

Meanwhile, after two straight months of record-high Russian crude purchases, India’s shipments fell 24 per cent in August on a month-on-month basis, 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),’’ the report added.

The IndianOil Vadinar SMPL facility took in a much smaller volume of Russian crude in August, down 48 per cent from the previous month. At the same time, imports at smaller refineries — including HPCL Mittal Energy (HMEL) via the Mundra Oil Terminal — declined 34 per cent month-on-month.