Union Petroleum and Natural Gas minister Hardeep Singh Puri recently in an interview said that India's decision to buy oil from Russia amid global uncertainties helped prevent a potential spike in international oil prices.

In an interview with CNN, while responding to whether the reduction in Russian oil imports was a strategic decision, Puri said, "These are oil decisions taken in the marketplace. When we faced February 22 there were 13 million barrels of Russian oil on the market suddenly if that oil had gone off the market and India had decided to shift its 5 million barrels to say suppliers in the Gulf, price of oil would have gone up to 200 a barrel. So I think we did everybody a favour".

The remark by the Union Minister came when he was in conversation with CNN's Becky Anderson on the sidelines of the annual energy industry event ADIPEC in Abu Dhabi on Thursday. Puri spoke about the supply of Russian oil, global oil across world, and noted that oil will continue to be a significant part of the world's energy supply for years to come.

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"Earlier I said I hope there will be a reduction in oil price. Today I'm more confident that there will be. By 2026, when more energy is available in the market, As a student of the situation, I think that the likelihood of prices remaining stable and coming down are higher," Puri told CNN.

Speaking about why India reduced importing oil from Russia in October by nearly 10 per cent, Puri said that there are other people who are willing to supply at the same competitive rate because the OPEC position is they don't deal with price.

"There's healthy competition going on. If you don't get it from one, you get it from someone else," they said.

On being questioned whether the reduction in Russian oil imports was a strategic decision, Puri said, "These are oil decisions taken in the marketplace. When we faced February 22 there was 13 million barrels of Russian oil on the market suddenly if that oil had gone off the market and India had decided to shift its 5 million barrels to say suppliers in the Gulf, price of oil would have gone up to 200 a barrel. So I think we did everybody a favour".

The Union Minister, later, also mentioned about the same on his X handle.

"India did the entire world a favour by buying Russian oil because if we had not done so, the global oil prices would have skyrocketed to USD 200/barrel. Russian oil was never under any sanctions and there was only a price cap, which Indian entities also followed," he wrote.

He also pointed out that some "ill informed commentators" wanting to put restrictions on India when European and Asian countries had also engaged in significant energy purchases from Russia.

(With inputs from agency)