African crude makes up for fall in Russian imports
India's increased intake of African oil helped partly offset the 18% month-on-month import decline from its top supplier Russia in December, according to energy cargo tracker Vortexa.
Russia's share in India's imported crude market shrank to 30% in December from 34.5% in November. Africa's share increased to 7.6% from 4.7%.
The shares of Iraq (22.3%) and Saudi Arabia (16.4%), the second and third-largest suppliers respectively, expanded about one percentage point each. The UAE's share fell to 4.5% from 6.6%.
Kuwait inched ahead of the US as the fifth largest supplier to India with a 4% share in December, up from 3.4% in November. The share of the US fell to 3.6% in December from 4% in the previous month.
India's imports of Russian crude in December were the lowest in 11 months, with the largest declines from Urals and Sokol crude, according to Vortexa.
«Lower Russian Urals arrivals into India are partially caused by disruptions in Russian Black Sea port loading operations due to bad weather conditions in November,» said Serena Huang, an analyst at Vortexa. «The absence of Sokol imports into India in December has reportedly been a result of payment issues between Indian Oil and Sakhalin-1 LLC, but this should be resolved with time.» Some Russian oil tankers haven't been able to discharge at Indian ports probably due to G7 sanctions that bar western ships from carrying Russian oil priced above $60 per barrel.
«We see at least five tankers that are Sokol-laden and headed for India making a U-turn at Bay of Bengal and diverting to China or slowing to a near halt,» said Huang.
Sokol, which is selling above $70 per barrel, made up just about 10% of total Russian crude imports in November. Urals, currently selling below $60
