Indian Refiners Continue West Africa Crude Buying Spree

By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com

India’s state-run refiners continue their buying spree of crude from West Africa as the Middle East crisis has sapped supply and made deliveries uncertain.

In one of the latest purchases via a tender, India’s state-owned refiner Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) has acquired 2 million barrels of Nigerian crude oil from Shell, trade sources told Reuters on Thursday.

HPCL has bought 1 million barrels each of Nigerian crude grades Forcados and Bonga for its Visakh refinery in the state of Andhra Pradesh on the east coast of southern India. The refinery has the capacity to process 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude.

Earlier this week, reports emerged that HPCL acquired 2 million barrels of Okwuibome and Utapate crudes from Nigeria from commodity trader Glencore via a tender.

The Nigerian crude from Glencore will go to feed HPCL’s refinery in the state of Rajasthan, HPCL Rajasthan Refinery Limited (HRRL), which has a capacity to process 180,000 bpd and in which Hindustan Petroleum holds a 74% stake. The remaining stake is held by the state government of Rajasthan.

Several Indian refiners have recently bought crude from Oman and West Africa via tenders, as term supplies from the Middle East remain choked by the shipping constraints at the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb.

State-controlled Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL) has acquired about 1 million barrels of crude oil from ‌Oman via a tender, at a premium of some $3 per barrel to Dated Brent, from Mitsui & Co Energy Trading Singapore, trade sources told Reuters earlier this week.

In addition, state-run Indian Oil Corporation, the largest refiner by capacity in the country, has bought from Chevron a total of 4 million barrels of West African crude, including Nemba, Saxi Batuque, and Clov grades from Angola, and Congo’s Djeno crude.

Indian refiners are in search of crude supply from as far as Angola in Africa and Venezuela in South America as their term supplies from the Middle East were trapped again in July and unable to reach India as planned.