Page 7 - AsianOil Week 33 2022

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Indian tanker used to help

Russian oil reach US

PIPELINES & AUTHORITIES in the United States have biggest ports and numerous oil terminals.
TRANSPORTTRANSPORT reportedly informed their counterparts in New The state is also one of the main gateways to
Delhi that an Indian vessel was used earlier in the some of northern India’s biggest cities and most
Authorities in the US year to aid in a high-seas transfer of crude oil that important industrial areas.
informed New Delhi of eventually made its way to New York. In recent months, India has become one of
the fact. As part of ongoing US sanctions on Moscow, the biggest buyers of Russian oil, with imports of
Russian produced energy products including crude now at more than triple the levels seen in
coal, crude, distillates, gas and refined fuels are the months prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
currently banned from entering all American This is despite sustained pressure from the US
ports. and UK in particular for India to join official
At present, though, with confusion surround- sanctions on Moscow, a move New Delhi has
ing the case in question, the few details that have thus far resisted.
been released have come from a senior Indian This has seen the overall trade value of Indian
banker, Michael Patra, the Deputy Governor of imports from Russia rise to almost $9bn in the
the Reserve Bank of India. six months since late February, according to data
In a speech to fellow bankers and government released by the nation’s Ministry of Commerce
officials while celebrating Indian Independence and Industry.
Day, Patra said: “You know that there are sanc- The government in India has so far refused
tions against people who are buying Russian oil to publicly condemn Russian hostilities or make
and this was reported to us by the US Treasury”, any direct reference to foreign concerns over
before continuing “(It) turns out, an Indian ship Indian vessels being used to re-route Russian
met a Russian tanker (on the) mid-seas, picked crude, whilst at the same time vigorously defend-
up oil on the mid-seas, came to a port in Gujarat, ing its own purchases of Russian crude.
it was processed in that port and converted into It was a point reiterated at the World Eco-
a distillate which actually goes into making sin- nomic Forum earlier in the summer when
gle-use plastic.” New Delhi’s Trade Minister Piyush Goyal said:
It is not the first time such claims have been “(When) inflation is at an all-time high, causing
made in relation to Russian transfers of crude on stress to people all over the world, and the Euro-
the open ocean in a bid to get around Western pean Union and other countries in Europe con-
sanctions. tinue to buy far larger quantities than India ever
Earlier in August, Lloyd’s List, the maritime thought of buying or will ever buy.”
intelligence site, reported that 13 ageing cargo Michael Patra, meanwhile, in becoming the
vessels had been purchased by Chinese agents highest ranking Indian official to date to refer
employing the same tactics somewhere in the directly to the ship-to-ship transfer, concluded:
middle of the Atlantic Ocean. “(The) refined output was put back on that ship
In India, Patra offered no specific details on and it set sail without a destination. In the mid-
the background or name of the ship or refinery seas it received the destination so it reached its
involved, although the state of Gujarat in India’s course, and went to New York. So that’s the way
north-west is home to one of northern India’s war works. It works in strange ways.” ™

Week 33 22•August•2022 www. NEWSBASE .com P7