A ship carrying Russian naphtha has been stuck off India’s western coast, unable to unload, since October 26 after US sanctions on two key suppliers disrupted Indian oil and fuel imports, traders said, and shipping data confirmed.
Following new Ukraine-related US sanctions on Russia last week, Indian refiners said they were ready to sharply curtail Russian oil imports, as New Delhi already faces punishing 50 per cent tariffs on its exports to the United States.
India is the second biggest buyer after Taiwan of naphtha from Russia, which in September shipped around 170,000 metric tons of the fuel used as a feedstock for petrochemicals and gasoline to India, market sources said and shipping data showed.
All of these cargoes have already been discharged in India, with the exception of around 40,000 tons of naphtha on the vessel that has been stuck near the port of Mundra in the western state of Gujarat, the sources and shipping data showed.
The cargo, of which the buyer and seller could not be ascertained, was loaded at the Russian Baltic port of Ust-Luga and was destined for Mundra, LSEG and Kpler data showed.
India’s HPCL-Mittal Energy, which operates the 226,000 barrel per day Bathinda refinery in the northern Punjab state, gets all of its crude and naphtha supplies at Mundra port.
HPCL-Mittal Energy, which said on Wednesday it has stopped purchasing Russian oil, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on Thursday.
“We will not buy from any sanctioned entity,” a source at HPCL-Mittal Energy told Reuters, adding that the refiner has a planned turnaround coming up in November and has ample stocks of naphtha for its cracker.
In October so far, naphtha loadings from Russian ports bound for India totalled around 185,000 tons and most of the cargoes are still at sea, LSEG data shows.
