Indian refiners have secured enough crude to meet their needs through at least August despite disruptions from the Iran war after stepping up purchases in recent weeks from Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) and other sellers, industry sources told Reuters.
Refiners in the world’s third-largest oil-importing and consuming nation have been lifting ADNOC crude and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cargoes via ship-to-ship transfer on a free-on-board basis, the sources added.
ADNOC is offering crude cargoes from Fujairah storage, Zirku or Das Island, as well as via ship-to-ship transfer in the Fujairah to Sohar area and Malaysia. LPG is mostly sold from Sohar.
“We are well covered on LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) front at least till mid-July, and crude is not a problem,” an Indian refinery source said, declining to be named.
State-run Hindustan Petroleum Corp (HPCL) has purchased 4 million barrels of Murban crude from the United Arab Emirates for August delivery from Totsa, the trading arm of TotalEnergies, and Mercuria, trade sources said on Thursday.
The crude was priced at a premium of about 40 cents per barrel to the July Dated Brent benchmark, one of the sources said.
Last week, HPCL bought 2 million barrels of crude from Brazil and West Africa for its 180,000-barrel-per-day Rajasthan refinery, traders said.
Other Indian refiners, including Indian Oil Corp and Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd have also purchased crude through spot tenders in recent weeks.
After supplies from West Asia were disrupted as the US-Israeli war on Iran in late February restricted shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, Indian refiners turned to imports from Latin America and Africa.
The refiners also obtained some supplies from Saudi Arabia, and it is increasingly becoming evident that countries are using ingenious ways to bypass the conflict zone.
For instance, Kuwait has shipped a cargo of LPG out of the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz using a tanker it controls, Bloomberg reported.
The Gas Umm Al Rowaisat, owned by state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp’s shipping arm, transited the strait before transferring the LPG cargo
to another vessel that is currently heading for India’s Paradip port. The tanker went dark after loading last month, reappearing near India on Sunday.
While shipments are well below pre-war levels, Rapidan Energy Group predicts around 2 million barrels of oil and related products are being ferried out of the Persian Gulf each day.