Indian Feb Crude Imports Slide on Red Sea Turmoil, Maintenance and Sanctions

Indian crude oil imports in February declined by 6.6% on the year to 18.02mn tons, or 4.5mbpd, and also down by 16.8% on the month, Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell data showed, due to Red Sea shipping disruptions, refinery maintenances, new sanctions on Russian oil and high imports in January.

• "Crude imports were lower in February on account of higher maintenance and possibly more import volumes spilling over from January," said Himi Srivastava, principal research analyst at S&P Global Commodity Insights.
• There was planned maintenance at HPCL’s Mumbai refinery, BPCL’s Kochi refinery, while Reliance's SEZ refinery also reported lower throughput due to the shutdown of its secondary units during the January-February period.
• Offline capacity last month was up by 100-120kbpd on the year, Srivastava said.
• Russian supplies to India accounted for 35% of total imports. S&P Global Commodity Insights expects India to import around 2 million b/d of crude oil from Russia in March.
• "Indian refineries, accustomed to acquiring Sokol at a rate of 150,000-160,000 b/d, observed a notable absence of Sokol imports in recent months. This was attributed to payment issues, while numerous tanks waited for discharge for more than 10 to 15 days," said Sumit Ritolia, refinery economics analyst at S&P Global.
• In addition, India’s Reliance said it will not buy Russian oil loaded on tankers operated by Sovcomflot after the latest US sanctions