'India Won't Pay Toll To Pass Through Strait Of Hormuz': Hardeep Puri To NDTV

As the Middle East crisis crosses the 100-day mark with no clear end in sight, a critical question has been shadowing India's energy security calculus: is New Delhi paying a price - financial or diplomatic - to keep its oil tankers moving through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which nearly 90 per cent of India's crude imports and 60 per cent of its LPG supplies were flowing before the conflict erupted?

Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri has now given the most direct answer yet from the Indian government, and it is an unambiguous no.

"Have we paid any toll? The answer is categorical. No," Puri told NDTV Senior Executive Editor Aditya Raj Kaul in an exclusive interview. "That's categorical because I was anticipating that question."

The Strait of Hormuz is a chokepoint between Iran and Oman and is also the world's most critical oil transit corridor. An estimated 20 per cent of all global petroleum trade passes through it. Since the Middle East crisis began on February 28 this year, regional tensions have raised alarm about the safety of commercial shipping through the strait, with fears that tankers could face harassment, seizure, or demands for passage fees from actors controlling the surrounding waters.

For India, the exposure is acute. The minister acknowledged the country's structural vulnerability plainly: "90 per cent of the crude imported by India used to come through the Strait of Hormuz and nearly 60 per cent of the LPG that India imported came also through the Strait of Hormuz." With India consuming approximately 5 million barrels of crude per day, even a partial disruption to Hormuz transit would constitute a national emergency.

Against this backdrop, Puri's confirmation that shipments are continuing - and without any toll or side payment - carries significant weight. When asked whether the passage arrangements involved Iran, the minister acknowledged Tehran's role in measured but warm terms.

"There is some arrangement at play with Iran. They have been good to us. I mean, all sides have been good to us," he said. He declined to elaborate on the specifics, saying, "I don't talk too much about it."

The phrasing - "all sides have been good to us" - is a carefully calibrated diplomatic signal, suggesting India has maintained workable lines of communication with multiple parties to the conflict simultaneously, consistent with New Delhi's long-standing foreign policy of strategic autonomy.

India and Iran share a historically layered relationship. Despite US sanctions on Tehran, India has at various points been one of Iran's largest oil customers and has invested in the Chabahar port on Iran's southeastern coast - a project seen as India's gateway to Central Asia and Afghanistan. That relationship, built over decades, appears to be providing a degree of quiet assurance during the current crisis.

#NDTVExclusive | "We will buy energy from wherever it is available at the most reasonable price": Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) to NDTV's @AdityaRajKaul pic.twitter.com/rNpofBeKTD

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Puri described the logistical reality of managing Hormuz-route shipments with a candid anecdote. After personally calling Sultan Al Jaber, head of Abu Dhabi's ADNOC, to secure emergency LPG cargoes, the minister received a late-night call from the Emirati official saying the cargoes were ready but India's ships hadn't arrived.

"Late at night, 10.30, 11, I got hold of, through my office, the oil marketing company - I said, what's wrong with you guys? You made me ask him for this thing," Puri recounted. The ships were rearranged by the following morning.

"So are the shipments still coming from the Strait of Hormuz? Yes, we got those now," the minister confirmed, though he added a note of deliberate discretion: "I don't talk too much about it."

The minister was equally firm that India has simultaneously reduced its dependence on the Strait by diversifying supply routes and ramping up domestic LPG production from 32,000 metric tonnes per day to 54,000 - a 68 per cent increase - while sourcing new LPG cargoes from the US and Australia.

Puri framed the entire Hormuz episode as a test of crisis management rather than crisis avoidance. "Any crisis has to have a time context. If it goes on, then it's not a crisis - then you are in depression," he said.