Case Study: OPEC's Oil Supply Decisions and Their Impact on Indian Inflation

India imports more than 85% of the crude oil it uses, which makes a meeting of OPEC+ ministers one of the most important macro events for Indian inflation that no Indian official attends. But the link is not mechanical. When crude halved in 2014 to 2016, Indian pump prices barely fell because the government raised excise duty nine times. When crude recovered in 2021, petrol crossed ₹100 a litre in several cities even though crude was below its 2014 level. And between 2022 and 2024 pump prices were frozen while international prices swung wildly. This case study explains how OPEC and OPEC+ actually make supply decisions, then follows the transmission chain from the Indian crude basket through the rupee, taxes, oil marketing company pricing and CPI weights to the RBI's policy rate. It works through four episodes: the 2014 to 2016 price war, the 2018 spike and the April 2020 collapse and record cut, the post 2022 era of voluntary cuts and discounted Russian barrels, and the 2025 unwinding. It closes with a practical framework for estimating pass-through, reading sector impact on NSE, and building your own OPEC watch routine.