Reliance Industries Ltd. has resumed Russian oil imports, sourcing barrels from non-sanctioned suppliers and routing them to its Jamnagar refinery in Gujarat, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
India’s largest refiner contracted Aframax tankers from RusExport and is routing flows to a 660,000-barrels/day plant that supplies domestic customers, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing sensitive information. Its return to the market is likely to pare a decline in India’s Russian oil imports, which officials have said could more than halve this month.
The oil market is focused on the fate of Russian exports after Washington DC imposed sanctions on Moscow’s two top producers in October in a bid to curb the Kremlin’s funds for the war in Ukraine. That’s left Indian refiners to tap exports from non-sanctioned Russian entities—as well as costlier alternatives from elsewhere—though Russian flows were still expected to drop sharply.
Reliance Industries paused Russian oil imports after the US sanctioned Rosneft PJSC and Lukoil PJSC on 22 October and gave refiners a month to wind down transactions with the two producers.
The operator of the world’s biggest refinery complex in Jamnagar, Gujarat, was granted an additional month to receive vessels it had contracted before the 22 October deadline, the people said. The final cargo under that waiver arrived in India on 17 December, before the exemption expired, they said.
As well as the 660,000-barrel/day plant at Jamnagar that supplies the domestic market, Reliance Industries also operates a 700,000-barrels/day unit in the same complex that’s focused on exports. The export-oriented refinery last took a shipment of Russian crude on 20 November, Reliance said last month. Since then, all Russian oil imports have flowed to its domestic sales-focused refinery.
Government officials this month estimated that India’s oil imports from Russia would slump to about 800,000 barrels/day from an average 1.9 million barrels/day in November as refineries stopped taking the crude.
