India Sets Trade Ties with the World’s Newest Oil Producer; Will Receive its First Consignment

New Delhi: Guyana to import its first consignment to the world’s third-largest crude importer India.  Trafigura charted vessel will depart this month from the production facility of the South American coast. 

 As OPEC’s share in India’s oil imports fell to historic lows between April 2020 and January 2021, the refining powerhouse began making preparations to import Guyanese crude while renewing a key supply contract between top refiner Indian Oil Corp Ltd and Russia. 

According to reports, the 1-million-barrel cargo of Guyana’s Liza light sweet crude set sail on March 2 loaded on Marshall Islands-flagged tanker Sea Garnet and is scheduled to arrive at India’s Mundra port on April 8th. Vikram Bharath, Guyana’s natural resource minister said that the rude onboard the Sea Garnet had been originally allocated to New York-based Hess Corp, one of the companies producing crude in Guyana along with Exxon Mobil Corp, and delivered to Trafigura. Bharath said he did not know the identity of the cargo’s ultimate buyer. 

India was a prominent importer of Venezuelan oil, but since the US sanctions tightened, India couldn’t buy enough and so it turned to the newborn Guyanese oil distributor.  Since Guyana began exporting crude in early 2020, its oil has flowed mainly to the United States, China, Panama, and the Caribbean. India did not receive any Venezuelan crude imports in February for a third consecutive month due to Washington’s suspension of oil-for-fuel swaps between state-run PDVSA and Reliance Industries Ltd since October. That compares with 371,300 barrels per day (BPD) of Venezuelan oil that arrived in Indian ports in February 2020.