News

New Delhi, India – When US President Donald Trump announced a trade deal with India on Monday this week, he declared that New Delhi would pivot away from Russian energy as part of the agreement.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Trump said, had promised to stop buying Russian oil, and instead buy crude from the United States and from Venezuela, whose president, Nicolas Maduro, was abducted by US special forces in early January. Since then, the US has effectively taken control of Venezuela’s mammoth oil industry.

In return, Trump dialled down trade tariffs on Indian goods from an overall 50 percent to just 18 percent. Half of that 50 percent tariff was levied last year as punishment for India buying Russian oil, which the White House maintains is financing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

But since Monday, India has not publicly confirmed that it has committed to either ceasing its purchase of Russian oil or embracing Venezuelan crude, analysts note. Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesperson, told reporters on Tuesday that Russia had received no indication of this from India, either.

And switching from Russian to Venezuelan oil will be far from straightforward. A cocktail of other factors – shocks to the energy market, costs, geography, and the characteristics of different kinds of oil – will complicate New Delhi’s decisions about its sourcing of oil, they say.

So, can India really dump Russian oil? And can Venezuelan crude replace it?

What is Trump’s plan?

Trump has been pressuring India to stop buying Russian oil for months. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the US and European Union placed an oil price cap on Russian crude in a bid to limit Russia’s ability to finance the war.

As a result, other countries including India began buying large quantities of cheap Russian oil. India, which before the war sourced only 2.5 percent of its oil from Russia, became the second-largest consumer of Russian oil after China. It currently sources around 30 percent of its oil from Russia.

Last year, Trump doubled trade tariffs on Indian goods from 25 percent to 50 percent as punishment for this. Later in the year, Trump also imposed sanctions on Russia’s two biggest oil companies – and threatened secondary sanctions against countries and entities that trade with these firms.

Since the abduction of Maduro by US forces in early January, Trump has effectively taken over the Venezuelan oil sector, controlling sales cash flows.

Venezuela also has the largest proven oil reserves in the world, estimated at 303 billion barrels, more than five times larger than those of the US, the world’s largest oil producer.

But while getting India to buy Venezuelan oil makes sense from the US’s perspective, analysts say this could be operationally messy.

How much oil does India import from Russia?

India currently imports nearly 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd) of Russian crude, according to analytics company Kpler. Under Trump’s mounting pressure, that is lower than the average 1.21 million bpd in December 2025 and more than 2 million bpd in mid-2025.

One barrel is equivalent to 159 litres (42 gallons) of crude oil. Once refined, a barrel typically produces about 73 litres (19 gallons) of petrol for a car. Oil is also refined to produce a wide variety of products, from jet fuel to household items including plastics and even lotions.

Has India stopped Russian oil purchases?

India has reduced the amount of oil it buys from Russia over the past year, but it has not stopped buying it altogether.

Under increasing pressure from Trump, last August, Indian officials called out the “hypocrisy” of the US and EU pressuring New Delhi to back off from Russian crude.

“In fact, India began importing from Russia because traditional supplies were diverted to Europe after the outbreak of the conflict,” Randhir Jaiswal, India’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said then. He added that India’s decision to import Russian oil was “meant to ensure predictable and affordable energy costs to the Indian consumer”.

Despite this, Indian refiners, currently the second-largest group of buyers of Russian oil after China, are reportedly winding up their purchases after clearing current scheduled orders.

Major refiners like Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL), Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL), and HPCL-Mittal Energy Ltd (HMEL) halted purchasing from Russia following the US sanctions against Russian oil producers last year.

Other players like Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation, and Reliance Industries will soon stop their purchases.

What happens if India suddenly stops buying Russian oil?

Even if India wanted to stop importing Russian oil altogether, analysts argue it would be extremely costly to do so.

In September last year, India’s oil and petroleum minister, Hardeep Singh Puri, told reporters that it would also sharply push up energy prices and fuel inflation. “The world will face serious consequences if the supplies are disrupted. The world can’t afford to keep Russia off the oil market,” Puri said.

Analysts tend to agree. “A complete cessation of Indian purchases of Russian oil would be a major disruption. An immediate halt would spike global prices and threaten India’s economic growth,” said George Voloshin, an independent energy analyst based in Paris.

Russian oil would likely be diverted more heavily towards China and into “shadow” fleets of tankers that deliver sanctioned oil secretly by flying false flags and switching off location equipment, Voloshin told Al Jazeera. “Mainstream tanker demand would shift toward the Atlantic Basin, most likely increasing global freight rates as a result,” he noted.

Sumit Pokharna, vice president at Kotak Securities, noted that Indian refineries have reported robust margins in the last two years, majorly benefitting from the discounted Russian crude.

“If they move to higher-costing, like the US or Venezuela, then raw material cost would increase, and that would squeeze their margins,” he told Al Jazeera. “If it goes beyond control, they may have to pass the excess onto consumers.”

Can India stop buying Russian oil altogether?

It may not be able to. One of India’s two private refiners, Nayara Energy, is majority-Russian-owned and under heavy Western sanctions. The Russian energy firm Rosneft holds a 49.13 percent stake in the company, which operates a 400,000-barrel-per-day refinery in India’s Gujarat, PM Modi’s home state.

Nayara is the second-largest importer of Russian crude, buying about 471,000 barrels per day in January this year, accounting for nearly 40 percent of Russian supplies to India.

Its plant has relied solely on Russian crude since European Union sanctions were imposed on the company last July.

Nayara is not planning to load Russian oil in April as it shuts its refinery for more than a month for maintenance from April 10, according to Reuters.

Pokharna said the future of Nayara hangs in the balance, with the US unlikely to grant India an overt exemption for the Russia-backed company to import crude.

Can India switch to Venezuelan oil?

India has been a major consumer of Venezuelan oil in the past. At its peak, in 2019, India imported $7.2bn of oil, accounting for just under 7 percent of total imports. That stopped after the US slapped sanctions on Venezuelan oil, but some officials of the government-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation are still stationed in the Latin American country.

Now, major Indian refiners have said they are open to receiving Venezuelan oil again, but only if it is a viable option.

For one thing, Venezuela is roughly twice as far from India as Russia and five times further than the Middle East, meaning much higher freight costs.

Venezuelan oil is more expensive as well. “Russian Urals [a medium-heavy crude blend] has been trading at a wide-ranging discount of about $10-20 per barrel to Brent, while Venezuelan Merey currently offers a smaller discount of around $5-8 per barrel,” Voloshin told Al Jazeera.

“Importing from Venezuela and forgoing the Russian discount would be a costly affair for India,” said Pokharna. “From transportation cost to forgoing discounts, it could cost India $6-8 more per barrel – and that is a huge increase in the importing bill.”

Overall, a complete pivot away from Russia could raise India’s import bill by $9bn to $11bn – an amount roughly equal to India’s federal health budget – per year, according to Kpler.

“Venezuelan crude must be discounted by at least $10 to $12 per barrel to be competitive,” argued Voloshin. “This deeper discount is necessary to offset the much higher freight costs, increased insurance premiums for the longer Atlantic voyage, and the somewhat higher operational expenses required to process Venezuela’s extra-heavy high-sulfur crude.”

Without deeper discounts, the longer journey and complex handling make Venezuelan oil more expensive on a delivered basis, he added.

Another major issue is that many Indian refiners simply do not have the facilities to process very heavy Venezuelan oil.

Venezuelan crude is a heavy, sour oil, thick and viscous like molasses, with a high sulphur content requiring complex, specialised refineries to process it into fuel. Only a small number of Indian refineries are equipped to handle it.

“[Venezuelan oil’s heaviness] makes it an option only for complex refineries, leaving out older and smaller refineries,” Pokharna told Al Jazeera. “The shift is operationally difficult and would require blending with more expensive light crudes.”

Then there is the question of availability. Today, Venezuela produces barely a million barrels per day when pushed to its limit. Even if all production was sent to India, it would not match the total Russian oil import.

Where else could India buy oil?

India’s Minister Puri has said that New Delhi is looking to diversify sourcing options from nearly 40 countries.

As India has reduced Russian imports, it has increased them from Middle Eastern nations and other countries in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Now, while Russia accounts for nearly 27 percent share in India’s oil imports, OPEC nations, led by Iraq and Saudi Arabia, contribute 53 percent.

Reeling from Trump’s trade war, India has also increased purchases of US oil. American crude imports to India rose by 92 percent from April to November in 2025 to nearly 13 million tons, compared to 7.1 million in the same period in 2024.

However, India would be competing for these supplies with the European Union, which has pledged to spend $750bn by 2028 on US energy and nuclear products.

Meanwhile, for Venezuela to return to higher production, Caracas needs political stability, changes in foreign investment and oil laws, and to clear debts. That will take time, experts say.

Names of the rich and powerful are littered throughout the latest batch of the “Epstein files.” Here are some of the most prominent global figures.

A recently released audio recording captures disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak discussing the “gigantic” sums paid to former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair for his consulting work, and questioning his financial arrangements.

In the recording, released by the United States Department of Justice as part of a massive new tranche of investigative files related to the disgraced financier, the men appear to be discussing strategies for former political figures to make money after leaving office.

Epstein, whom Blair has admitted meeting once in Downing Street during his time as prime minister, talks approvingly of the significant sums being paid to the former United Kingdom leader for his work, but speculates that the money is not all going to Blair, with payments of some funds being made to other parties.

The audio does not provide specific details about the other parties.

Blair, a divisive figure who led the UK from 1997 to 2007 and was an architect of the catastrophic Iraq war, provided consultancy services to clients, including governments, through his firm Tony Blair Associates after leaving office.

He reportedly closed the firm in 2016 to found the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, which describes itself as a “not-for-profit, non-partisan organisation helping governments and leaders turn bold ideas into reality”.

‘How do we make money?’

During the released conversation, Barak, Israel’s prime minister from 1999 to 2001, raises the question of a “business model”, asking Epstein “how do we make money out of” a contract with a government or governments.

He raises “something that I’ve heard from you … that Tony Blair, for example, is doing some probably $11m per year from the Kazakhstan government just to give them advice, to help them with lobbying in some NGO or UN organisation”.

UK newspaper The Guardian has reported that Tony Blair Associates signed a deal to advise Kazakhstan’s government in 2011, months after autocratic former President Nursultan Nazarbayev was controversially re-elected in a landslide and weeks before security forces shot dead 14 people during an antigovernment uprising.

Epstein, who was found dead in his New York City jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking, replies: “Tony has turned funny.”

“I don’t know what Tony’s doing for money. And I don’t know if the money that Tony is getting is actually to Tony or to somebody else.”

He continues: “I hear gigantic numbers given to Tony – $5m here, $10m here, $5m there. Tony’s not making $30m a year.”

Barak replied: “Yeah, but he’s become quite … I can judge from the style of his watches that he’s …”

“Yes, but he’s making $10m a year,” says Epstein.

Barak then responds: “Probably he [gets] the money and he leaves some of it to the others, probably some of the providers.”

Leaked emails suggest that Epstein served as a trusted financial adviser, fixer, concierge, sounding board and even friend to Barak during their long-running relationship, which continued for years after the disgraced financier became a convicted sex offender following a controversial plea deal in 2008.

The US Justice Department has not confirmed when the recorded conversation took place. Media reports suggest it took place in early 2013.

‘Rubbish,’ says Blair spokesperson

Asked for comment on the released conversation through his institute, a spokesperson for Blair said: “None of these people have any idea about what he did or didn’t earn, and the figures given are rubbish.”

The spokesperson said that Blair had met Epstein only once, as had been previously reported, and had never spoken to or seen him since.

“He has never discussed what he earned with either of the other two people mentioned,” they said.

The payment for work in Kazakhstan was “not paid to Blair but to his organisation, which hired a team of people for the purpose of that work, which was about reform in Kazakhstan and completely in line with what other international institutions were working on”.

“It was not related to communications or lobbying, which further demonstrates that none of the people concerned knew what they were talking about,” said the spokesperson.

A spokesperson for Blair previously said in October that he had met Epstein once “for less than 30 minutes” in Downing Street in 2002, where they discussed US and UK politics, noting the meeting took place long before his crimes were known of and his subsequent conviction.

Mandelson investigation

The acknowledgement came as the UK’s National Archives released details of the meeting under a freedom of information request, after UK political veteran Peter Mandelson, a close associate of Blair’s during his time in power, was fired as Britain’s ambassador to the US over his relationship with Epstein.

This week, UK police announced they had launched an investigation into allegations that Mandelson committed misconduct in public office in his dealings with Epstein.

The material includes emails from Mandelson to Epstein sharing sensitive government information, as well as bank documents suggesting Epstein transferred tens of thousands of dollars to accounts linked to Mandelson or his partner.

Blair has recently been back in the spotlight after US President Donald Trump named him one of the founding executive members on the so-called “Board of Peace“, tasked with oversight of the administration and reconstruction of Gaza under the US leader’s 20-point plan to end Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza.

More than 71,000 Palestinians have been killed and Gaza turned into rubble during Israel’s two years of nonstop bombardment. Rights groups and scholars have dubbed Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide. Despite a “ceasefire” agreed upon in October, Israel has killed more than 500 Palestinians, including 21 on Wednesday, and has reneged on many of the terms of the deal.

Blair’s participation in Trump’s project has been a major source of contention, given his prominent role in the Iraq war, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

Mediators from Qatar, Turkiye and Egypt have presented Iran and the United States with a framework of key principles to be discussed in talks on Friday this week, including a commitment by Iran to significantly limit its uranium enrichment, two sources familiar with the negotiations have told Al Jazeera.

Key points in the proposed framework also include restrictions on the use of ballistic missiles and the arming of Iran’s allies in the region, according to the sources, who include a senior diplomat who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the talks.

An Iranian source has separately told Al Jazeera that the talks, which US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi are expected to attend, will take place in Oman and not Turkiye as previously planned.

This slim window for diplomacy comes as the region braces for a potential US attack on Iran after President Donald Trump ordered forces to amass in the Arabian Sea following a violent crackdown by Iran on protesters last month.

What is in the proposals?

Under the proposed framework for an agreement, Iran would commit to zero enrichment of uranium for three years. After that, it would agree to limit enrichment of uranium to below 1.5 percent.

Its current stock of highly enriched uranium – including about 440kg (970lb) that has been enriched to 60 percent – would be transferred to a third country.

The proposed framework goes beyond Iran’s nuclear programme with mediators proposing that Iran should agree not to transfer weapons and technologies to its regional, nonstate allies.

Tehran would also pledge to not initiate the use of ballistic missiles under this framework. This falls short of a US demand that Iran curb the number and range of its ballistic missiles.

A “nonaggression agreement” between Tehran and Washington is also being proposed by the three mediators, one of the sources said.

It is not yet known how Washington or Tehran have responded to the proposed framework.

For its part, the US has made it clear that any deal must include regulations on Iran’s nuclear programme, missiles and proxies.

In the past, Iran has been willing to compromise on nuclear development, including in 2015 when it signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a nuclear deal with  other countries, including the US, to limit nuclear enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief. Three years later, however, Trump pulled the US out of the agreement.

But Tehran has so far refused to talk about limiting its support for nonstate allies in the region and curtailing its ballistic missiles.

On Wednesday, Iran was still holding firm to the line that it would “exclusively” discuss the nuclear programme and the lifting of sanctions, the semiofficial Tasnim news agency reported.

Defiant tone

The mediators’ framework was presented to the US and Iran just before Witkoff met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his spy chiefs during a visit to Israel on Tuesday.

The US is entering negotiations with significant leverage as Iran faces an unprecedented mix of external and internal pressures.

A US aircraft carrier, fighter jets and navy destroyers are now positioned in the Arabian Sea, presenting Tehran with a credible military threat.

Meanwhile, Iran has been rocked by nationwide protests in December and January, which culminated in the country’s most brutal episodes of violence in decades.

Still, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has maintained a defiant tone, and observers remained cautious about whether he would be willing to compromise on key issues, considering the degree of mistrust towards the US in Tehran.

Reviving diplomacy

This is not the first time Iranian and US officials have met in a bid to revive diplomacy between the two nations, which have not had diplomatic relations since 1980. In June, US and Iranian officials gathered in the Omani capital, Muscat, to discuss a nuclear agreement, but the process stalled as Israel bombed Iran.

The Israeli strikes kicked off a 12-day war, which ended with the US bombing key Iranian nuclear facilities and Iran making a symbolic strike on Al Udeid military base in Qatar, which hosts US forces.

Since then, Tehran has claimed it has replenished its stockpile of ballistic missiles and has warned countries it would use them if attacked. Washington is particularly eager to limit Iran’s ballistic missiles because, during the 12-day war, some Iranian missiles succeeded in breaching Israel’s much-vaunted Iron Dome defence system.