The country is already buying oil from 39 countries and if more energy comes on source, it will look to expand its options, Puri said.
Crude oil imports from Venezuela to India can have a sobering effect in the market, said oil minister Hardeep Singh Puri amidst a rising concern of dwindling Russian discounts on oil and talks of India reconsidering Venezuela as a key importer.
“Venezuela has the largest reserves. If Venezuela comes on the market, it should have a sobering effect on all the others (market players),” Puri told press on the sidelines of Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet. “And our refineries, Paradip and Reliance, have already been using Venezuelan oil,” the minister said.
India’s share of Russian crude oil decreased in October from the peak of approximately 2 million barrels per day witnessed earlier this year as the discounts offered by the latter narrowed.
The country is already buying oil from 39 countries and if more energy comes on source, it will look to expand its options, Puri said.
Analysts at S&P Global see Venezuela as an emerging market for India to import crude oil once again due to its discounted barrels.
“Indian refiners are likely to consider the Venezuelan market to import discounted barrels. Coker complexes have been operating at full capacity or even overcapacity recently, primarily due to the increased processing of cheap high-sulfur Russian Urals crude,” said Sumit Ritolia, refinery economics analyst at S&P Global in a recent report.
“If the refining economics would favor Venezuelan crude in the future, Indian refiners may need to displace crude from their existing sources, which might include Middle Eastern, Latin American and US crudes,” he added.
India used to import approximately 300,000 barrel per day crude from Venezuela during 2017 to 2019, prior to US sanctions because of the discounted pricing offered by the Venezuelan producers, according to S&P Global.
“India continues to fulfil its growing crude requirements from across global markets at most optimal price it gets,” Gaurav Moda, Partner, Energy Sector Leader from EY India had told FE. “As volume availability vs price flexibility changes from one source, appropriate rebalancing may happen.”
India’s crude oil imports from Russia fell to 1.57 million barrels a day in October from 1.78 million bpd in September, as per data from Kpler. Imports from Saudi Arabia, however, jumped almost 65% on month to 7,96,659 bpd. Of India’s overall imports of 4.50 million bpd in October, Russian crude accounted for nearly 35% of total imports followed by Iraq with 21% share and Saudi Arabia at 18%.
Source:financialexpress.com