India's Reliance makes rare buy of Russian naphtha, ups fuel oil imports
INDIA’s Reliance Industries has been snapping up Russian refined fuels, including rare puchases of naphtha, now that some Western buyers have stopped Russian imports, trade flows data from Refinitiv showed.
The company is the operator of the world’s largest refining complex.
Western sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine have led to an emergence of rare trade routes for Russian crude and refined products, which have been sold mainly to European countries.
India imported about 410,000 tonnes of naphtha, used for making petrochemicals, in the September-to-October period, the Refinitiv data showed.
Of this figure, Reliance received about 150,000 tonnes from the Russian ports of Ust-Luga, Tuapse and Novorossiysk during the two months.
The private refiner did not buy Russian naphtha in 2020 and 2021. Its annual imports of Russian naphtha were restricted to just one parcel in four years to 2019, the data indicated.
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The data showed Okyroe, a Panamax carrier, sailing towards India laden with about 59,000 tonnes of Russian naphtha.
“With European countries shutting down Russia, they need to find outlets for their naphtha,” a trader based in India said, referring to Russian firms.
Russian naphtha is being sold at lower premiums to countries like India, two Asian naphtha traders said.
Reliance, which has two plants together capable of processing 1.4 million barrels of oil a day, has emerged as a key buyer of Russian oil since Moscow’s February military action in Ukraine.
It also buys straight-run fuel oil from countries, including Iraq and Russia, to process at cokers in the two refineries in the western Indian state of Gujarat to boost refining margins.
Reliance’s fuel oil imports from Russia have surged to a record 3 million tonnes since the beginning of this fiscal year in April, versus about 1.6 million for all of 2021/22, noted Refinitiv.
Reliance is expected to receive about 409,000 tonnes of fuel oil in December, the data showed. REUTERS
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