Indian state companies signed energy deals worth billions of dollars with Russia’s Rosneft to buy into its most promising assets in Siberia, stepping up a drive to cut New Delhi’s dependence on imports.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who wants to cut India’s oil imports by 10 per cent in six years, is steering efforts to buy foreign energy assets, taking advantage of low global oil prices and a slowdown in China’s overseas acquisitions.

Under the deals signed with Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin, the Indian companies will raise their stake in the Vankor oil field to almost 50 per cent and buy about 30 per cent of the Taas-Yuriakh field.

The deals will help Rosneft, the world’s biggested listed oil producer by output, to pay off debts incurred in its $55 billion acquisition of TNK-BP in 2013.

Russia is keen to develop and deepen its Soviet-era economic ties with India and sell oil to one of the world’s fastest-growing economies at a time when its own economy is stagnant, hit by Western sanctions and a plunge in global oil prices. Modi had pitched to Russian President Vladimir Putin for the granting of stakes to Indian oil firms during his visit to Moscow in December.

The deals will help India to secure Russian oil output, while Rosneft will gain access to the Indian market, Sechin told reporters in New Delhi.