Mumbai: Reliance Industries shares have fallen almost 5% on Tuesday, January 6 after a Bloomberg report claimed that three oil tankers from Russia were on the way to its Jamnagar facility despite India committing to pause its oil imports from the country.
This development came a day after Reliance’s shares climbed 1.18% a day earlier due to hopes of resumption of oil shipments from sanction-hit Venezuela. The company denied the report, which had also said that the company was to receive 2.2 million barrels of Russian Ural crude.
“Reliance Industries’s Jamnagar refinery has not received any cargo of Russian oil at its refinery in the past three weeks approx. and is not expecting any Russian crude oil deliveries in January,” the company said in a statement on X.
Statement by Reliance Industries Limited:
A news report in Bloomberg claiming “three vessels laden with Russian Oil are heading for Reliance Industries Limited’s Jamnagar refinery” is blatantly untrue.
Reliance Industries’s Jamnagar refinery has not received any cargo of…
— Reliance Industries Limited (@RIL_Updates) January 5, 2026
India’s purchase of Russian oil was a major sticking point between India and the US, driving US President Donald Trump’s decision to slap a 50% tariff on Indian goods in August, along with a 25% penalty for buying Russian oil and arms.
India has agreed to pause imports of Russian oil, as both countries are now looking to sign a long-delayed trade deal.
Reliance Industries had paused the purchase of Russian oil by December 2025 to comply with the EU ban on fuel imports made from Russian oil from third countries.
“This transition has been completed ahead of schedule to ensure full compliance with product-import restrictions coming into force on 21 January 2026,” the company had said back then in a statement.
Investors were visibly spooked by the Bloomberg report, even though Reliance has been one of the best performers on the BSE Sensex, rising almost 29% in 2025 as against just 9% for the Sensex as a whole.
