‘We had asked India to stop buying sanctioned Russian oil this fall, they did,’ says U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent

The U.S. said it has given “permission” to India to buy Russian oil that is on ships already floating on waterways with a view to easing supplies around the world amid the West Asia conflict.

“The world is very well supplied in oil. Yesterday, the Treasury (Department) agreed to let our allies in India start buying Russian oil that was already on the water,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview to Fox Business on Friday (March 6, 2026).

“The Indians had been very good actors. We had asked them to stop buying sanctioned Russian oil this fall. They did. They were going to substitute it with U.S. oil. But to ease the temporary gap of oil around the world, we have given them permission to accept the Russian oil. We may unsanction other Russian oil,” he said.

Mr. Bessent added that there are hundreds of millions of sanctioned barrels of crude on the water, and in essence, “by unsanctioning them, Treasury can create supply. And we are looking at that. We are going to keep a cadence of announcing measures to bring relief to the market during this conflict.”

Several other Trump administration officials have also been saying that the U.S. has now allowed India to buy Russian oil, months after President Donald Trump had imposed 25% punitive tariffs on Delhi for its purchases of oil from Moscow.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a post on X Friday that the United States is “allowing our friends in India” to take the Russian oil already on ships around Southern Asia, refine it and move the stocks into the market quickly in order to ensure a flowing supply and ease pressure amid the ongoing US-Israel war against Iran.

“We have implemented short term measures to help keep oil prices down. We are allowing our friends in India to take oil that is already on ships, refine it, and move those barrels into the market quickly. A practical way to get supply flowing and ease pressure,” Mr. Wright said.

In an interview to ABC News Live, Mr. Wright said that long-term oil supplies are “abundant” and there are no worries regarding that, but in the short term, there is a need to get oil on the market.

“But as oil gets bid up a little bit because of those constraints coming out of the Strait of Hormuz, we’re taking a short-term action to say all this floating Russian oil storage that’s around Southern Asia, it’s China just backed up, China does not treat their suppliers well, so there’s a bunch of floating barrels just sitting there.

“We’ve reached out to our friends in India and said, ‘Buy that oil. Bring it into your refineries’. That pulls stored oil immediately into Indian refineries and releases the pressure on other refineries around the world to buy oil that they’re no longer competing with the Indians for in that marketplace,” Wright said.

“So we have a number of measures like that that are short-term and temporary. This is no change in policy towards Russia. This is a very brief change in policy just to keep oil prices down a little bit better than we could otherwise,” he added.

On Thursday, amid the escalating conflict with Iran, the U.S. said it was issuing a temporary 30-day waiver to allow Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil.

“President Trump’s energy agenda has resulted in oil and gas production reaching the highest levels ever recorded. To enable oil to keep flowing into the global market, the Treasury Department is issuing a temporary 30-day waiver to allow Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil,” Mr. Bessent had said.

He said this “deliberately short-term measure” will not provide significant financial benefit to the Russian government, as it only authorises transactions involving oil already stranded at sea.

“India is an essential partner of the United States, and we fully anticipate that New Delhi will ramp up purchases of U.S. oil. This stop-gap measure will alleviate pressure caused by Iran’s attempt to take global energy hostage,” Mr. Bessent said.