India has pushed into a corner of the Russian oil market once dominated by China, taking a record number of shipments of a Far Eastern grade as the fallout from Moscow\u2019s invasion of Ukraine reshapes trade flows.<\/p>\n
Six vessels hauling Russian crude known as ESPO were headed to refiners in the South Asian nation in August, according to traders and shipbrokers. That\u2019s the highest number of cargoes purchased by India since the stream was introduced, and accounts almost one-fifth of available monthly shipments.<\/p>\n
\u201cESPO crude is now becoming a steady flow for India, a country that wasn\u2019t a big fan of the variety for years,\u201d said Emma Li, analyst at Vortexa Ltd. \u201cThe voyage to India will take longer, but the shipments might continue as long as the price stays attractive and there aren\u2019t real sanctions blocking the trade.\u201d<\/p>\n
India has emerged as a key buyer of Russian energy in the wake of the invasion, scooping up millions of barrels of discounted crude shunned by Europe and the US. As the conflict has dragged on, the third-largest oil importer first ramped up purchases of the flagship Urals crude, which loads from the western part of Russia, and is now competing for ESPO, a distillate-rich grade that comes from the east and was typically favored by China.<\/p>\n
The ESPO shipments going to India are cheaper than the nation\u2019s usual Middle Eastern grades, and will likely displace some flows from Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, the traders and shipbrokers said. A recent dip in purchases by China\u2019s Sinopec freed up some volumes, enabling Indian buyers to swoop in, they said.<\/p>\n
The August shipments of ESPO are up from July\u2019s pace, when five cargoes went to ports such as Vadinar, Sikka, Paradip and Mundra. Refiners such as state-owned Indian Oil Corp., as well as private processors Reliance Industries Ltd and Nayara Energy Ltd operate plants near those terminals.<\/p>\n
Before this year\u2019s spree, India wasn\u2019t a prominent player in the trade, with local refiners citing factors such as ESPO\u2019s small cargo size of 100,000 tons being undesirable for the long and costly journey from Kozmino, where it\u2019s loaded. That had left North Asian nations such as China, South Korea and Japan competing for the 30 to 35 shipments dispatched every month.<\/p>\n
While India has been taking much more Russian crude this year, the US is pressing New Delhi to agree to a bold plan to cap the price of the country\u2019s oil to deny revenues to Moscow. The initiative will be assessed on Friday by Group of Seven finance ministers, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
India has pushed into a corner of the Russian oil market once dominated by China, taking a record number of shipments of a Far Eastern grade as the fallout from Moscow\u2019s invasion of Ukraine reshapes trade flows. Six vessels hauling Russian crude known as ESPO were headed to refiners in the South Asian nation in August, according to traders and shipbrokers. That\u2019s the highest number of cargoes purchased by India since the stream was introduced, and accounts almost one-fifth of available monthly shipments. \u201cESPO crude is now becoming a steady flow for India, a country that wasn\u2019t a big fan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-518658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oil-gas"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518658\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}