Indian Oil Corp. has bought several crude oil cargos from Angola, Brazil, and the UAE to replace Russian barrels under sanctions, Reuters reported today, citing unnamed sources.
The purchases include 1 million barrels of Murban crude from the Emirates, sold by Shell, and 2 million barrels of Upper Zakum from Mercuria. IOC also bought 1 million barrels of Angolan Hungo and 1 million barrels of Clove crude from the West African producer, with Exxon as the seller. Lastly, the Indian major purchased 2 million barrels of Buzios crude from Brazil’s Petrobras.
Earlier this week, reports emerged that Indian state-run refiner Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited had awarded tenders to buy Iraqi and Omani crude on the spot market, as India’s refiners boost supply of crude from the Middle East to offset in part the volumes they lost from Russia following the U.S. sanctions.
BPCL has awarded one-year tenders to buy Iraq’s Basrah Medium and Oman crude to global commodity trader Trafigura, unnamed sources told Reuters on Wednesday. Additionally, BPCL was scouring the market for spot cargoes of Murban crude from the United Arab Emirates in a separate tender.
Since 2022, Russia transformed from a minor supplier of crude to India to its biggest single supplier thanks to deep price discounts resulting from Western sanctions on Moscow’s oil industry. The latest U.S. sanctions, however, targeted specifically Russia’s two largest oil exporters, Rosneft and Lukoil, and were accompanied by 25% tariffs on Indian exports to the U.S. if Indian refiners continued to buy Russian oil – which they did, but at much lower volumes.
Russian oil flows to India dropped to the lowest since 2023 last month to 1.38 million barrels daily, down 22% on November. Still, the drop was not as significant as some expected because Indian refiners switched from Rosneft and Lukoil to non-sanctioned Russian oil companies as suppliers.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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