India’s crude oil imports from United Arab Emirates (UAE) have increased sharply in the recent months
India’s crude oil imports from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have increased sharply in recent months amid narrowing discounts on Russian crude oil supply and production cuts from Saudi Arabia.
In November, India imported 303,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil from UAE — an increase of 35.26 percent from the previous month, according to data from energy cargo tracker Vortexa. Similarly, India’s crude imports from UAE in October increased 61 percent from September, at 224,000 bpd.
The increase in crude imports from UAE in recent months comes as Indian refiners are facing payment-related issues on buying Russian oil and are therefore looking back at traditional Middle-East suppliers.
“With the US enforcing stricter surveillance in terms of a fleet of shipping companies which are trying to ship Russian oil to India and other markets, it has become difficult for Indian refiners to procure Russian oil. As a result, they (Indian refiners) are shifting to other producers from OPEC,” said Hitesh Jain, Lead Analyst, Yes Securities.
“Despite the (supply) curtailment from OPEC, UAE is one of the countries which is keeping its output high. If you look at the trend before the Ukraine-Russia war, India used to import a huge quantum of oil from Iraq, UAE and Saudi Arabia. Going forward, countries such as UAE and Iraq are ideal for India and import from these countries should go up,” Jain added.
