MUMBAI: Indian shares dipped on Tuesday after data showed retail inflation eased marginally last month, while investors were spooked by Wall Street hitting a bear market milestone on fears of a looming recession.
The NSE Nifty 50 index was down 0.3 percent at 15,727.05 as of 0354 GMT, while the BSE index fell 0.4 percent to 52,638.45.
India’s retail inflation eased to 7.04 percent in May, after touching an eight-year high of 7.79 percent in April, but remained above the central bank’s tolerance band for the fifth month in a row, suggesting it would continue with rate hikes in August.
Russia becomes India’s second-biggest oil supplier
Russia rose to become India’s second-biggest supplier of oil in May, pushing Saudi Arabia into third place but still behind Iraq which remains No. 1, data from trade sources showed.
In May, Indian refiners received about 819,000 barrels per day of Russian oil, the highest thus far in any month, compared to about 277,00 in April, the data showed.
Western sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine prompted many oil importers to shun trade with Moscow, pushing spot prices for Russian crude to record discounts against other grades.
That provided Indian refiners, which rarely used to buy Russian oil due to high freight costs, an opportunity to snap up low-priced crude.
Russian grades accounted for about 16.5 percent of India’s overall oil imports in May, and helped raise the share of oil from the Commonwealth of Independent countries to about 20.5 percent, while that from the Middle East declined to about 59.5 percent, the data showed.
The share of African oil in India’s crude imports last month surged to 11.5 percent from 5.9 percent in April, the data showed.
India’s oil imports in May rose to 2.5 year high: sources
India’s oil imports in May totalled 4.98 million bpd, the highest since December 2020, as state refiners raised output to meet higher local demand while private refiners turned focus to gain from exports, according to the data from trade sources.
Imports in May were about 5.6 percent up from the previous month and about 19 percent from a year earlier, when imports declined as a second deadly wave of COVID-19 dented fuel demand, the data obtained from sources showed.
