Rosneft may use Venezuelan crude at Essar’s Vadinar refinery India forecast by IEA as world’s fastest growing oil consumer A $13 billion deal involving Russia in India threatens to weaken the grip of Middle East crude suppliers in the world’s fastest growing oil market. Rosneft PJSC is part of a group of investors that beat suitors from Saudi Arabia and Iran to buy Essar Oil Ltd.’s Vadinar refinery, India’s second-biggest, in a deal announced over the weekend. Russia’s largest oil producer is following a strategy by resource-rich firms and nations to secure outlets for their output, and may supply the facility with Venezuela crude and challenge Middle East exporters that provide about two-thirds of the country’s imports. “India will be the most important product-growth market over the next 25 years, making it important to Russia,” according to Neil Beveridge, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. […]