India will 'benefit' from price cap on Russian oil: U.S. Treasury Secretary Yellen

India, which imports nearly 85% of its fuel requirement, until March imported just 0.2% of all oil requirements from Russia

India will "benefit" from the proposed price cap on oil, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said, arguing that the United States does not want Russia to "profit unduly" from the war by enjoying prices that are essentially very high due to its Ukrainian invasion.

Developing countries like India and China have been increasingly buying discounted Russian oil as global energy prices remain high and Western nations seek to scale down their reliance on Russian energy.

“We want Russian oil to continue to supply global markets; stay on the market. But we want to make sure that Russia doesn't profit unduly from the war by enjoying prices that are essentially very high due to the war,” Ms. Yellen told PTI in an exclusive interview on Monday ahead of her trip to India later this week.

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India’s oil purchase from Russia and the Ukrainian invasion is expected to be significant topics of discussion during her India trip, where Ms. Yellen is travelling to primarily co-chair the U.S.-India Economic and Financial Partnership (EFP) dialogue along with her Indian counterpart Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

“Our objective is to hold down the price that Russia receives for its oil and keep that oil trading. The gainers from this will be particularly those countries that do buy cheap Russian oil, and our hope would be that India would take advantage of this price cap, though its firms are bargaining with Russia,” Ms. Yellen said.

“If they (India) want to use Western financial services like insurance, the price cap would apply to their purchases. But even if they use other financial services, we believe the price cap will give them leverage to negotiate good discounts from world markets. We would hope to see India benefiting from this programme,” the Treasury Secretary told PTI in response to a question.