Page 4 - AsianOil Week 30

AsianOil SOUTH ASIA AsianOil
Indian imports of Venezuelan crude surge in June
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2012-13 2013-14
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2015-16
Oil product consumption
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Supply and Demand
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2018-19
Data: PPAC
Crude/condensate production
PERFORMANCE
ALTHOUGH India’s crude oil imports declined to their lowest level in June since February 2017, purchases oF Venezuelan cargoes reportedly hit a 21-month high.
Overall oil imports shrank 13.4% year on year to 16.87mn tonnes (4.12mn barrels per day), according to government data published on July 23. e gure was also 10% lower than May’s 18.87mn tonnes (4.46mn bpd).
Imports of Venezuelan crude, however, soared 54% year on year to around 474,000 bpd in June, Reuters reported on July 29, citing unnamed shipping and industry sources.
Privately owned Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and Nayara Energy, which is part-owned by Russia’s state-run Rosne , are understood to be the only Indian buyers of the South American country’s oil. While US sanctions on Venezue- la’s state-owned PDVSA have scared away many other customers, both RIL and Nayara have long-term crude purchase deals that predate the sanctions. e sanctions were implemented in January in a bid to drive embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from o ce.
RIL received about 1mn tonnes (244,000 bpd) of oil from Venezuela in June, while Nayara Energy received about 940,000 tonnes (230,000 bpd). RIL’s purchases were far short of the 400,000 bpd of heavy crude the company agreed to buy from PDVSA in 2012 under a 15-year deal.
Reuters cited sources as saying that the rea- son for June’s surge in volumes, which were more than double those in May, was the result of sev- eral delayed cargoes nally making it to port.
While deliveries soared in June because of the logistical correction, six-month gures point to a growing dependence on crude from the Latin American producer. Venezuelan imports rose by 11% in the rst six months to about 357,000 bpd.
Indian is diversifying its import basket a er buyers halted shipments of Iranian oil a er the US allowed a six-month waiver to sanctions on the Middle Eastern country’s oil exports to expire on May 2. Indian Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan said on July 16 that the country would look to the inter- national market to o set the lost Iranian oil.™
ONGC rig project delayed again
PROJECTS & COMPANIES
STATE-RUN Indian developer Oil and Natu- ral Gas Corp.’s (ONGC) long-delayed project to convert the Sagar Samrat o shore rig into a mobile o shore production unit (MOPU) has been postponed again, according to a new gov- ernment report.
e project, which has already been delayed by 79 months, was supposed to have been finished in March but the deadline has been pushed back again until December, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI) has said.
In its latest status report, MOSPI revealed that in addition to the delay the state com- pany was also looking at a nal cost blowout of INR7.15bn ($103.9mn). The original budget
for the conversion of the Sagar Samrat rig was INR8.62bn ($125.2mn).
e conversion was approved in March 2011 and the vessel was supposed to have been com- missioned by May 2013.
ONGC originally awarded the conversion contract to Mercator Oil & Gas in 2011, but can- celled it in October 2018 a er repeated delays. At the time, the service provider’s parent Mercator said the conversion was 95% complete. ONGC had spent INR11.95bn ($173.6mn) on the con- tract at that point.
e state developer then chose the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) Gulf Piping to wrap up the project, with a new commissioning date set for March. An unnamed ONGC executive
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