Four months after war broke out in West Asia on February 28, the most visible symptom of the conflict, crude oil above $100 a barrel has begun to fade. The deeper condition, has not. Data from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers' Commodity Price Monthly Monitor for June 2026 shows that while Brent has retreated sharply from its April peak, the cost shock has migrated outward into nearly every input that goes into an Indian vehicle; steel, copper, zinc, rubber, carbon black and battery chemicals are all trading at or near twelve-month highs even as the oil market cools.
For OEM procurement teams and component suppliers, that sequencing matters. The first phase of the war was an energy shock. The second, now underway, is a broad-based materials inflation that is proving far stickier.
Oil: The Spike, the Retreat, and the Lag at the Pump
The crude trajectory tells the story of the conflict in three acts. Brent averaged $70.89 a barrel in February, the last full month before hostilities. It jumped to $103.13 in March, peaked at $117.29 in April, eased to $107.14 in May, and fell to $86.11 in June — a 20 per cent month-on-month decline, though still 21 per cent above June 2025 levels, according to the SIAM monitor.
India's exposure to that swing remains structural. The country imports roughly 88 per cent of its crude requirement against a refining capacity of 258.1 MMTPA. Notably, imports have not contracted under price pressure: they rose 11.2 per cent month-on-month to 5.04 million barrels per day in May, with Russia supplying 38.6 per cent of the total at 1.92 mbpd, supplemented by higher Venezuelan volumes. The sourcing pattern suggests Indian refiners have leaned harder into discounted non-West Asian barrels as the conflict disrupted Gulf flows.
What reached the consumer arrived late and is still arriving. Pump prices in Delhi and Mumbai, effectively frozen from June 2025 through April 2026, finally moved in May, and again in June. Delhi petrol now stands at Rs 102.12 a litre and diesel at Rs 95.20 — roughly 8 to 9 per cent above last year and 5 to 6 per cent above May's prices. Mumbai petrol has crossed Rs 111. CNG, the fuel underpinning much of the three-wheeler and light commercial segment, hit Rs 83.10 a kilogram in Delhi and Rs 86.00 in Mumbai, both at twelve-month highs. The demand side has so far absorbed the increase: petrol consumption rose 4.8 per cent and diesel 6.4 per cent year-on-year in May. But the delayed pass-through means retail fuel inflation will persist into the second quarter even if crude continues to soften — a headwind for entry-level two-wheeler and small-car demand that OEMs will be watching closely into the festive planning cycle.
Steel and Metals: The Second Wave
If oil is retreating, ferrous and non-ferrous metals are not. HR steel, the workhorse of body panels and chassis, ranged between Rs 60,750 and Rs 62,000 a tonne in June—17 per cent above last year, 3 per cent above May, and at its highest level in twelve months. CR steel held at Rs 65,000-66,500, up 14 per cent year-on-year. The cost push is coming from the furnace: Australian premium coking coal averaged $266 a tonne in June, 38 per cent higher than a year ago and also at a twelve-month peak, even as iron ore eased 7 per cent to $101.
The non-ferrous complex is more striking still. Copper — central to wiring harnesses and increasingly to electrified powertrains — averaged $13,574.30 a tonne in June, up 38 per cent year-on-year and at its twelve-month high. Zinc, which feeds galvanised sheet, rose to $3,540.50, up 34 per cent and also at a peak. Virgin aluminium, at $3,458.60, is 37 per cent above last year despite a 6 per cent monthly correction. For an industry where automotive production consumes 21 per cent of aluminium and a rising share of copper, these are not marginal moves; they are structural repricing of the bill of materials.
One partial offset: the platinum-group metals that dominate exhaust after-treatment costs peaked in January, before the war, and have been unwinding since. Platinum fell 13 per cent month-on-month to Rs 5,372 a gram, palladium 12 per cent to Rs 3,962, and rhodium 18 per cent to Rs 24,584 — though all three remain 34 to 62 per cent above June 2025 levels.
Rubber, Polymers and the Crude Echo
The tyre and elastomer chain illustrates how the oil shock propagated with a lag. Synthetic rubber (SBR) spiked from Rs 164.88 a kilogram in March to Rs 281.34 in May before correcting to Rs 235.88 in June—still 26 per cent above last year. Polybutadiene followed the same arc and sits 60 per cent higher year-on-year. Carbon black, the oil-derived reinforcing filler, is still climbing: Rs 150.77 a kilogram in June, up 12 per cent on the month and 39 per cent on the year, reaching a twelve-month peak.
Natural rubber offered no refuge, rising to Rs 268.98 a kilogram, its own peak, up 35 per cent year-on-year. Engineering plastics repriced in March alongside crude and have largely held there: polypropylene at Rs 133 a kilogram is 33 per cent above last year, ABS is 29 per cent higher, and polycarbonate is 23 per cent higher.
The EV Cost Problem Nobody Paused for
For electric vehicle programmes, the war compounded a battery-materials rally that predated it. Lithium carbonate at $20.81 a kilogram is 158 per cent above June 2025; lithium hydroxide is up 135 per cent; cobalt metal, at $51,882.66 a tonne, is 78 per cent higher. The June data shows modest month-on-month declines of 4 to 6 per cent across the group, but the level reset is severe, and it lands just as OEMs finalise FY28 EV pricing. The lone stable input is rare-earth magnet material: NdFeB scrap at $11.72 a kilogram is actually 4 per cent below last year, though India's import dependence on China — $24.38 million of the most recent monthly sourcing — remains its own strategic exposure.
Currency, Freight and the Arithmetic of Import Dependence
Two multipliers sit beneath all the dollar-denominated numbers. The rupee, despite appreciating marginally to 95.52 against the dollar in June from 96.16 in May, is roughly ten rupees weaker than a year ago — amplifying every imported tonne of coking coal, copper and lithium in rupee terms.
Against this backdrop, the industry's volume performance has been notably resilient. The question for the remainder of FY27 is whether that resilience survives the collision now approaching: input costs locked in at wartime peaks meeting a consumer who is only beginning to feel the fuel pass-through.
The Way Forward
While June's data suggests the war premium is draining out of crude, it is anybody's guess what will happen as clouds of war are again raising their heads in West Asia. The automotive industry is closely watching the developments with a deep breath.