After falling to a seven-month low of 1.55 million barrels per day in August, India’s imports of Russian crude oil in September jumped 18.3 per cent to 1.83 million bpd.
Additionally, India, the world’s third greatest oil importer and client, imported round round 916,690 bpd, 7.36 per cent extra crude oil from Iraq in September in comparison with the earlier month.
As per experiences, India’s import of crude oil from Russia and Iraq recovered final month more than likely as a consequence of their worth benefit over Saudi Arabian crude grades.
The share of Russia and Iraq in India’s September oil imports stood round 43 per cent and 22 per cent, respectively, whereas in August, Russia’s share was 35.4 per cent and Iraq’s was 19.5 per cent.
Crude oil imports from Saudi Arabia fell 32.87 per cent month-on-month in September to round 556,185 bpd.
Iraq was India’s greatest supply of crude oil, adopted by Saudi Arabia. Nonetheless, after the battle in Ukraine, Russia displaced Baghdad and Riyad to turn into New Delhi’s largest oil provider, providing huge reductions on its crudes.
“Price competitiveness favours Russian crude and if the Indian refiners want to take term volumes from the Middle East, they seem to prefer Iraqi barrels as Basrah Medium continues to be some $2 per barrel cheaper than Arab Medium or Arab Light,” mentioned Viktor Katona, lead crude analyst at Kpler.
Katona mentioned India’s imports from Russia would transfer nearer to 2 million bpd mark as soon as refiners full upkeep turnaround of items by end-October.
Indian refiners principally purchase crude about two months forward of processing. They principally buy Russian oil on the spot market, whereas largely counting on time period contracts for center japanese crude.
With inputs from companies