India is expected to import the highest volumes of crude from Venezuela in six years as refiners returned to purchasing the now-unsanctioned oil just before the war in the Middle East crippled supply to the world’s third-largest crude importer.
India is estimated to import as many as 12.51 million barrels of Venezuelan crude in April, per Kpler data cited by Bloomberg. This would be the highest volume of oil from Venezuela to arrive in India in one month since February 2020, and would mark the first import from the South American producer since May 2025, according to the data.
The cargoes arriving in April were likely booked before the start of the war that trapped the Middle East’s crude supply and send India, which imports 85% of the oil it consumes daily, scrambling for alternative supply.
The Ottoman Sincerity crude oil tanker that departed from Aruba on March 3 after a ship-to-ship transfer arrived this weekend at Sikka, on the West Coast of India, tanker-tracking data on MarineTraffic showed. This was the first cargo from Venezuela that India has imported in 11 months.
India’s top private refiner, Reliance Industries, which in February was granted a U.S. license to buy crude directly from Venezuela, has already loaded its first cargo from Venezuela’s state oil firm PDVSA on the Bahama-flagged very large crude carrier Helios, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Venezuelan crude would help India diversify its crude supply amid the crunch in the Middle East, which typically accounts for about half of Indian refiners’ imports.
With most supply from the Middle East out of the market, India is boosting imports of sanctions-free Russian crude, too.
India’s imports of Russian crude oil jumped by 90% in March versus February, following the major supply disruption in the Middle East and the U.S. waiver of purchases of Russian crude already loaded on tankers.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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