NEW DELHI, Aug. 25 -- The tankers arrive at the Vadinar refinery's jetty in Gujarat every few days now, a steady procession of Russian crude that has made Rosneft's Indian joint venture the single most important energy node in Asia's third-largest economy. In July 2026, India imported more Russian oil than it ever has - and the number tells only half the story.

The other half is arriving on liquefied natural gas terminals, or rather, it is not. As the Iran war has choked throughput in the Strait of Hormuz to a fraction of pre-conflict levels, spot LNG prices for Asia have climbed to what government officials and industry executives are privately calling the most expensive supply conditions in years. The two crises are not separate events...