Delcy Rodríguez visits India: Will oil talks lead to an energy deal?

1 day agoShareSaveAdd as preferred on Google Soutik BiswasIndia correspondent AFP via Rodríguez arrives in India on Wednesday for her sixth visit, with energy ties high on the agenda Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela's acting president, is in India and will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday for talks on trade, investment, healthcare and renewable energy. But the relationship between the two countries still revolves around a single commodity: oil. India, the world's third-largest importer of oil, has sharply increased purchases of Venezuelan crude in recent months, turning the South American producer into an increasingly useful supplier just as the Iran war has choked energy flows from the Gulf. India imports about 90% of its oil. Roughly half its crude imports - around 2.5-2.7 million barrels a day - pass through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow Gulf chokepoint now effectively closed . NurPhoto via India imports about 90% of its oil - roughly half its crude imports pass through the Strait of Hormuz That gives Venezuela an importance that far exceeds its place in India's trade statistics. Bilateral trade was worth just $679m in 2024-25 - a tiny fraction of India's global commerce. Yet whenever Delhi seeks to diversify its oil suppliers, Caracas becomes hard to ignore. Venezuela was India's fifth-largest source of crude oil imports in May, supplying about 266,000 barrels a day, or roughly 5.3% of India's total crude imports, according to maritime analytics firm Kpler. Only Russia, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Brazil supplied more. After a year-long interruption triggered , Indian refiners resumed imports in February following a sanctions-easing agreement between Washington and Caracas. Whenever Delhi seeks to diversify crude supplies away from the Middle East now, the world's largest proven oil reserves become hard to ignore. That is the backdrop to Rodríguez's sixth visit to India, where she is due to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday. Michael Kugelman, a senior fellow for South Asia at the Atlantic Council, said Venezuela offers India an opportunity to diversify its energy supplies beyond the Middle East, while potentially aligning with Washington's preference that India reduce its reliance on Russian oil. "Ramping up imports from Venezuela could also give a boost to India's ties with Washington," Kugelman told the BBC. However, he cautioned that Venezuela's political volatility could complicate any new energy partnership and that Delhi "will also need to be careful not to appear to be seeking energy alternatives to Russia at the behest of Washington".