China-bound Russian oil tanker diverted to India

A Russian oil tanker diverts to India, boosting local refineries despite sanctions and geopolitical tensions.

A crude oil tanker that set sail from Primorsk in Russia for Rizhao port in China has changed course in Southeast Asia and is now heading towards the New Mangalore port with 1.1 lakh tonnes (7.7 lakh barrels) of Urals crude, showed ship-tracking data. The ship is expected to reach Mangaluru on March 20.

According to marinetraffic.com, Aqua Titan, a Cameroon-registered tanker, left the Russian port on January 18. It anchored at Port Suez and departed on February 21, showed vesselfinder.com.

Sources in the New Mangalore Port Authority (NMPA) told The Hindu that Aqua Titan’s arrival would boost the confidence of the refiner, Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd., (MRPL). They said with one tanker already discharging Russian Urals crude at the Single Point Mooring (SPM) on Wednesday, NMPA would receive at least three more tankers by month-end.

Ships originating from Primorsk usually take the route via Suez Canal to reach India’s west coast on the Arabian Sea. But ship-tracking website Equasis said the Aqua Titan was seen in North Europe and West Europe in January, South Asia in February, Southeast Asia and Singapore Strait in March, indicating that it circumvented India and then made a U-turn in Southeast Asia to head to India.

Usually, chartered ships do not change course midway. But the Aqua Titan is a sanctioned vessel. “This is a highly sanctioned fleet owned by the Russian government. The Aqua Titan is also sanctioned so the transparency is even worse. Essentially, the dark fleet vessels are controlled by the Russian state in the end,” said Erik Grundt, senior analyst, Rystad Energy, an energy intelligence company based in Norway.

Reports said the vessel made a U-turn in mid-March after the U.S. said India could import Russian crude for 30 days.