Crude oil: Amid demand surge, China-bound Russian tanker diverts towards India
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: The Aqua Titan, a Russian crude oil carrier that was bound for China, has taken a U-turn in the South China Sea and is now rushing to reach India on March 21, the media reported on Wednesday.
Its move came after New Delhi began doubling down on imports from Moscow.
The oil tanker is set to arrive in New Mangalore on March 21 with its Urals cargo that it loaded from a Baltic Sea port in late January, according to ship-tracking data. T
The Aframax vessel originally signalled the Chinese port of Rizhao as its destination before making an about-face in Southeast Asian waters in mid-March, days after the US nodded for India to temporarily increase Russian purchases, Bloomberg reported.
Indian refiners promptly snapped up 30 million barrels of Russian oil in the week that followed the US concession, a move aimed to help the nation cope with lost West Asian supplies due to the ongoing war in Iran.
Since then, the US allowed more countries to resume purchases from Russia. That paves the way for further diversions from China, which has served as Moscow’s importer of last resort in recent months after India reduced purchases. The return of buyers, including those in Japan and South Korea, is likely to push prices higher.
At least seven tankers carrying Russian oil have switched their destinations mid-voyage from China to India, according to Vortexa Ltd., with all of India’s major refiners now in the market for the country’s crude.
Separately, the Suezmax Zouzou N. is signalling India’s Sikka as its next destination, with an estimated arrival date of March 25, ship-tracking data show. The tanker is carrying Kazakh CPC Blend crude, according to Kpler. It had sailed from Novorossiysk on Russia’s Black Sea to the waters off Rizhao, before turning around in early March to make its way to India.
