Ships with Iran oil anchor off India as Trump announces blockade
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A vessel at the Strait of Hormuz, off the coast of Oman’s Musandam province on April 12.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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TEHRAN – Two sanctioned supertankers laden with Iranian crude have dropped anchor off Indian ports, marking what could be the first such cargoes to arrive in the country in nearly seven years, just as the US escalates efforts to curb Tehran’s exports.
India hasn’t received Iranian oil since 2019, because of US sanctions.
A waiver in March, however, allowed purchases of crude already on the water, a bid to ease the impact of the war in the Middle East on global supply.
The world’s third-largest crude importer has since said it would buy cargoes from Iran, among other countries, to navigate the energy crisis.
It is unclear how US President Donald Trump’s plan to blockade vessels coming through the Strait of Hormuz – an effort to choke off Iranian shipments after peace talks broke down – will impact the waiver or existing purchases.
The Felicity has dropped anchor off Sikka in western India late on April 12, ship-tracking data show.
A very-large crude carrier that’s owned by the National Iranian Tanker Company, according to database Equasis, it is laden with two million barrels of Iranian crude that it lifted from the oil-export hub of Kharg Island in mid-March.
The Jaya began signalling on April 12 that it is moored near Paradip on India’s east coast.
The ship had picked up 2 million barrels of crude from Kharg Island in late February before the US and Israel began attacking Iran.
Jaya’s owner is listed as unknown on Equasis, a common feature of the shadow tankers serving Tehran’s oil industry.
The US had allowed the temporary sale of Iranian oil and petrochemical products already loaded on tankers in late March, as it sought to put a lid on rising oil prices due to the Middle East war.
Under the waiver, state-owned refiner Indian Oil has purchased a cargo of Iranian oil, Bloomberg reported last week, though the vessel was not named.
The buyers of the two shipments are unclear. IOC runs operations that use Paradip for crude deliveries.
Reliance Industries uses Sikka, as does Bharat Petroleum, which runs a single-point mooring facility in the area.
The state refiners did not immediately respond to e-mailed requests for comment. BLOOMBERG
