09/09/2026
India's crude import bill for April to July: $63.4 billion. Same four months last year: $40.5 billion. Volumes were identical. India bought no extra oil and paid $23 billion more for it. That is what a supply shock looks like on a national balance sheet.
The Indian crude basket averaged $82 in July, $90 in August, and is running at $100.75 so far in September. The Q3 bill will be worse than Q1's.Here is the detail nobody is talking about. Brent is at $98. India's basket is above $100. The basket is mostly Oman and Dubai crude, which normally trades below Brent. It is now trading above it. The specific barrels India's refineries are built to run are the scarce ones.Why? Hormuz. Shipments from West Asia have fallen from about 18 million barrels a day to about 11. The US destroyed five Iranian tankers this week. Iran is drawing an exclusion zone beyond the strait. Nobody is loading sour crude in a hurry.Now look at your petrol pump. Prices have not moved since May 25. The basket has risen $18 since. Someone is absorbing that gap, and it is not you. Yet.It is the oil marketing companies. Icra says marketing margins on petrol and diesel are turning negative at these levels. LPG under-recovery is already Rs 200 per cylinder. IOC, BPCL and HPCL are the shock absorber for the entire economy right now.Meanwhile fuel demand fell 2.8% in August. With frozen prices. Demand is softening before the price has even been passed on. That is the economy telling you something the pump is not.So the pressure has to go somewhere. Three exits. The OMCs keep bleeding. The government cuts excise or pays subsidy, and the fiscal deficit widens. Or pump prices go up and inflation gets a second wind. Every one of these is bad for a different asset you might own.And this lands in the same week the Fed may hike on the 16th and the BOJ may hike on the 18th. Expensive oil, expensive dollar, expensive yen, and a rupee that has to pay for all three.Watch the facts, not the statements
