New Delhi [India], March 31 (ANI/NewsReach): Russia's biggest oil producer Rosneft Oil Company has signed a term agreement with Indian Oil Company (IOC), India's top oil company, to increase oil supplies and diversify India's oil grades substantially.

In the presence of India's oil minister Hardeep Singh Puri, the agreement between the two firms was signed by Rosneft's Chief Executive Officer Igor Sechin and IOC Chairman Shrikant Madhav Vaidya during the former's recent visit to India.

"The parties also discussed ways of expanding integrated cooperation between Rosneft Oil Company and Indian companies in the entire value chain of the energy sector, including possibilities of making payments in national currencies," said the Russian company in a statement.

During his trip, Sechin also met with officials from the Indian government and with the heads of some of the country's largest oil and gas companies.

"Particular attention was paid to the ongoing implementation of joint projects between Rosneft and its Indian partners, including Sakhalin-1, Taas-Yuryakh and Vankorneft," the statement said.

The two parties also noted a significant increase in turnover between Russia and India. According to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry of India, Russia, for the first time in history, has become one of India's five largest trading partners - the volume of trade between the countries in 2022 reached USD 38.4 billion.

"Thus, the goal set by the leaders of our countries to increase turnover to USD 30 billion by 2025 has been achieved in advance," said Igor Sechin, CEO, Rosneft.

Rosneft has been actively developing the integrated format for cooperation with Indian partners along the whole processing chain, from extraction to refining and oil product sales.

Indian companies (ONGC Videsh Ltd., Oil India Limited, Indian Oil Corporation, and Bharat Petroresources) have been owners of 49.9 per cent of Rosneft's subsidiary JSC Vankorneft since 2016. This company is located in Krasnoyarsk Territory and develops the Vankorskoye oil and gas condensate field, one of the biggest fields discovered and brought on stream over the last 25 years in Russia.

A consortium of Indian companies (Oil India Limited, Indian Oil Corporation and Bharat Petroresources) also owns 29.9 per cent of Taas-Yuryakh Neftegazodobycha, which develops the Central Block and the Kurungsky license block of the Srednebotuobinskoye field which is among Rosneft's largest assets in Eastern Siberia.

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