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US Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Friday said that Washington's decision on issuing a 30-day waiver to India to purchase certain Russian oil supplies is part of "short-term measures" aimed at keeping global oil prices under control amid supply pressures linked to tensions in the Middle East.
Speaking to ABC News Live, Wright explained that the move is intended to quickly bring oil stored in floating reserves into the global market and ease immediate supply constraints. He added that there are significant volumes of Russian oil currently stored in floating tankers around southern Asia, and that the US has encouraged India to import those supplies to stabilise the market. "We need to get oil on the market in the short term. In the long term, supplies are abundant. There's no worry there. But as oil gets bid up a little bit because of those constraints coming out of the Straits of Hormuz, we're taking a short-term action to say all this floating Russian oil storage that's around southern Asia," Wright stated. "We've reached out to our friends in India and said, 'Buy that oil. Bring it into your refineries.' That pulls stored oil immediately into Indian refineries and releases the pressure on other refineries around the world to buy oil that they're no longer competing with the Indians for in that marketplace," the Energy Secretary added. He emphasised that the step does not represent a broader shift in Washington's policy toward Russia but rather a temporary measure aimed at easing market pressure. "This is no change in policy towards Russia. This is a very brief change in policy just to keep oil prices down a little bit better than we could otherwise," he said. This comes amid a crisis in the Gulf, severely hampering shipping routes, particularly oil tankers that pass through the Strait of Hormuz, following which US Treasury Secretary Bessent on Thursday announced the 30-day measure to counter it. In a post on X, Bessent said,"To enable oil to keep flowing into the global market, the Treasury Department is issuing a temporary 30-day waiver to allow Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil." "This deliberately short-term measure will not provide significant financial benefit to the Russian government as it only authorises transactions involving oil already stranded at sea. India is an essential partner of the United States, and we fully anticipate that New Delhi will ramp up purchases of U.S. oil," the post added. (ANI)
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