India Oil Import: Ever since America has imposed sanctions on Russia, India is in trouble. India now has to buy crude oil from far-flung countries. According to Bloomberg ship-tracking data, India has now started buying crude oil from Guyana.
For this, Indian tankers have to cover a long distance of about 11,000 miles (17,700 kilometers). According to the report, two large crude carriers, Cobalt Nova and Olympic Lion, left the South American country of Guyana in late November, each carrying about 2 million barrels of oil. These tankers are going to reach India in January.
India is looking for an alternative to Russia
Tracking data also showed that this is the first crude shipment from Guyana to India since 2021. During that time also, two cargoes loaded with 1 million barrels of crude oil had departed. India was importing about 1.7 million barrels of Russian oil every day, but last month US sanctions on Rosneft PJSC and Lukoil PJSC, Russia’s two biggest exporters, raised concerns among Indian refiners. Even before this, US President Donald Trump had doubled the tariff on India for buying crude oil from Russia to 50 percent.
Oil was available at discount from Russia
India is the third largest buyer of crude oil in the world, having purchased crude oil worth $52.7 billion from Russia last year, which was 37 percent of Russia’s total exports. Apart from Russia, India also imports crude oil from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Nigeria and America. However, the special thing is that India gets crude oil from Russia at a discount rate. India got an average discount of 14.1 percent on Russian oil in the year 2022-23 and up to 10.4 percent in 2023-24. Due to this, India got savings of up to 5 billion dollars.
This is the destination of both ships
The Olympic Lion, a cargo of Guyana’s Golden Arrowhead crude, is headed to Paradip on India’s east coast, where state-run Indian Oil Corp. Operates a 300,000 barrel-per-day refinery. It acquired ExxonMobil Inc. through a tender in October. Bought the cargo from. Cobalt Nova, carrying a mixed cargo of Liza and Unity Gold grades, will probably disembark in Mumbai or Visakhapatnam, where Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Runs the plant. The company purchased 1 million barrels of each of these grades for delivery from late December to early January.
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