India’s state-owned refiner Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) is set to sign next week an oil supply deal with Brazilian state giant Petrobras for the delivery of 12 million barrels of crude, valued at about $780 million.
The signing of the agreement is expected to take place during the India Energy Week 2026 forum, which will be held between January 27 and January 30 in Goa, the Indian government said in a statement on Friday carried by Reuters.
Indian refiners, including BPCL, are looking to diversify their crude supply as the U.S. sanctions on Russia’s top oil producers, Rosneft and Lukoil, forced the world’s third-largest crude importer to seek alternatives to a large volume of the Russian crude it had previously bought.
In October, Petrobras signed an oil sales contract with another Indian state-owned refiner, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL). The contract provides for the delivery of up to six million barrels of oil and is valid for one year.
Earlier this week, refining and trade sources told Reuters that BPCL had awarded tenders to buy Iraqi and Omani crude on the spot market, as India’s refiners are raising supply of crude from the Middle East to offset in part the volumes they lost from Russia following the U.S. sanctions.
All Indian refiners have said they would comply with the U.S. sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil, and Russian supply to India has now plunged to a three-year low.
Additionally, BPCL is scouring the market for spot cargoes of Murban crude from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in a separate tender, according to Reuters’ sources.
Over the past weeks, India’s refiners have significantly raised purchases of non-Russian oil supplies as they want to avoid angering the United States amid difficult India-U.S. trade negotiations.
The biggest state refiner, Indian Oil Corporation, is also said to have bought several crude oil cargos from Angola, Brazil, and the UAE to replace Russian barrels under sanctions.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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