It's not just India: the other BRIICS snap up cheap Russian oil

India may be in Donald Trump's crosshairs, but other major emerging economies have stepped up their purchases of discounted Russian crude since sanctions on Moscow kicked in during 2022.

An analysis of international trade data using Harmonized System (HS) codes -- granular datasets recently added to CEIC's platform -- lets us zero in on the "mineral fuels" category, which includes crude oil.

As our chart shows, Brazil stepped up its imports in mid-2023. Indonesia has been buying somewhat more Russian crude since mid-2024.

(And of course, as we wrote last week, India's imports of Russian "mineral fuels" more than quintupled from end-2022 levels.)

China had historically been a much more important buyer of Russian crude than the rest of the BRIICS nations -- at least since the 2010s, when more eastward Russian energy infrastructure was constructed; previous rounds of western sanctions on Russia also made the Chinese market more appealing.

As we show in our second chart, as of mid-2020, China imported about 12% of its mineral fuel needs from Russia, compared with 2% or less for the rest of the BRIICS. China has stepped up purchases enough to push Russian supply to 18% of its needs -- but that proportion has now been surpassed by the import dependency levels of India and Brazil.

Our third and fourth visualizations break down oil supplies for Indonesia and Brazil. The Indonesian case is notable due to mineral-fuel imports from the nearby entrepot of Singapore, as well as Malaysia. (We have previously discussed Malaysia's role as a transshipment country for Iranian crude.)

Brazil, meanwhile, appears to be displacing US imports with Russian supply.

Click here to read about India's imports of Russian "mineral fuels" and Malaysia's role as a transshipment country for Iranian crude.

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