Reliance Industries, India’s biggest private refinery operator, has not received any Russian oil cargoes over the past three weeks and has not made any orders for deliveries this month, the company said in a post on X.
In a statement that denied a Bloomberg report about Russian oil shipments en route to Reliance’s Jamnagar refinery, the company said “A news report in Bloomberg claiming ‘three vessels laden with Russian Oil are heading for Reliance Industries Limited’s Jamnagar refinery’ is blatantly untrue.”
“Reliance Industries’s Jamnagar refinery has not received any cargo of Russian oil at its refinery in the past three weeks, approx”. and is not expecting any Russian crude oil deliveries in January,” the company said further, adding that “We are deeply pained that those claiming to be at the forefront of fair journalism chose to ignore the denial by RIL of buying any Russian oil to be delivered in January and published a wrong report tarnishing our image.”
Previously, Reliance Industries was the biggest Indian importer of Russian crude, not least because of its partnership with Rosneft that involves a long-term crude oil supply deal for the Jamnagar refinery at a daily rate of some half a million barrels.
Reliance said it had suspended all Russian oil shipments in November, a day before the latest U.S. sanctions on Russia’s energy industry came into effect. Those specifically targeted Rosneft and Lukoil, the two biggest exporters of crude from Russia.
Tanker-tracking data has suggested that overall Indian imports of Russian crude remain substantial, although there has been a decline from pre-November levels. Last week, however, Bloomberg reported that there were three tankers on their way to the Jamnagar refinery. Citing data from Kpler, the publication said the vessels carried a total of some 2.2 million barrels. The sellers of the cargo, the report claimed, were trading companies that were not on the U.S. sanction black list.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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