Indian refineries reject oil transported by sanctioned Russian tankers
All Indian refineries are refusing to accept Russian crude transported on ships of the owner of the sanctioned Russian tanker fleet, Sovcomflot, to avoid facing tougher enforcement of US sanctions against Russia, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing sources no name familiar with the matter.
The United States imposed new sanctions against Russia last month, on the second anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and in response to the death of opposition politician and anti-corruption activist Alexey Navalny. Among the 500 targets of the new sanctions, the US Treasury and State are targeting Russian oil operator Sovcomflot and more than a dozen crude oil tankers linked to the Russian state firm.
All Indian refiners are now carefully checking the ownership chain of every tanker carrying Russian crude, to make sure the ships are not affiliated with Sovcomflot or other entities on the US sanctions list, Bloomberg's sources told.
Earlier this week, two unnamed sources familiar with the situation told Reuters that India's largest refiner, Reliance, had stopped buying crude from Russia and transported on tankers owned by Sovcomflot, as the United States has tightened the application of sanctions.
As a result, Reliance has asked its Russian trading partners not to load shipments onto Sovcomflot ships, the Reuters sources told.
Refiners in India have begun to worry that the new sanctions will make it harder to ship oil from Russia on vessels not subject to sanctions, which would increase shipping costs and eat into their refining margins, according to sources who spoke to Reuters at the end of February.
India will continue to buy crude from Russia, but only if it is sold below the G7 price ceiling of $60 a barrel and if it is shipped on unsanctioned vessels, an Indian government source told Reuters. this makes purchases more complicated.
Even before the latest U.S. sanctions, refining margins at India's largest state refiners had fallen due to tougher access to Russian crude and soaring freight rates due to disrupted Red Sea shipments, analysts and traders said at Bloomberg last month.
While China has a notable number of small domestic refineries, which have no direct international contacts and therefore operate with little fear of US sanctions, this is not the case for India, where the industrial groups are larger and therefore more concerned about possible sanctions.
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This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/le-raffinerie-indiane-rifiutano-il-petrolio-trasportato-da-petroliere-russe-sanzionate/ on Fri, 22 Mar 2024 14:03:46 +0000.