One of India’s largest state-owned refiners, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), has signed an agreement with supermajor BP to buy U.S. WTI crude for four months beginning in June, trade sources told Reuters on Wednesday.
Under the deal, BPCL will be buying 1 million barrels of West Texas Intermediate crude from BP in each of the four months starting in June this year, according to the sources.
Separately, BPCL has also purchased as much as 2 million barrels of WTI crude loading in April in a tender on the spot market, Reuters’ sources say.
It’s not unusual for BPCL to buy U.S. crude oil for its three refineries in India. But the four-month deal with BP comes at a time when India’s state-held refiners and some large private refiners are reportedly looking for more U.S., West African, and Middle Eastern crude as purchases of some of Russia’s crude grades are being hampered by the stricter enforcement of the U.S. sanctions against Moscow.
India is set to import in April its highest oil volumes from the United States in 11 months as the stricter enforcement of the U.S. sanctions against Russia is slowing Russian crude flows to the world’s third-largest crude importer.
So far this month, three Indian refiners – state-held Bharat Petroleum and Indian Oil Corporation and private refining giant Reliance Industries – have already bought around 7 million barrels of U.S. crude for loading in April, unnamed traders told Bloomberg this week.
The April volumes of U.S. crude flows to India are set to be the biggest since May 2023, per Kpler data cited by Bloomberg.
Most of the crude bought in March for April loadings is WTI Midland, which, although more expensive than some Middle Eastern crude, is comparable to Russia’s Sokol grade, whose flows to India have been the most affected by the tightened U.S. sanction enforcement.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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