Hours after reports of a vessel carrying Iranian crude heading towards India, the ministry of ports, shipping and waterways said it did not know of any such development.
Mukesh Mangal, additional secretary at the shipping ministry, when asked about an Iranian oil ship moving towards India, replied that the government had “no specific information” on the vessel. Mangal made the remark during an inter-ministerial briefing on the recent developments in West Asia.
Ship tracking data had earlier suggested that India’s first Iranian crude oil cargo since 2019 may be heading towards a port in Gujarat, PTI news agency reported.
Shipping vessel Ping Shun headed to Gujarat’s Vadinar: Analyst
Sumit Ritolia, lead research analyst for refining and modelling at commodity market analytic firm Kpler, had earlier suggested that the vessel Ping Shun was en route to Vadinar in Gujarat with 600,000 barrels of crude.
HT could not independently verify the authenticity of the information.
This comes after the US President Donald Trump-led administration’s “30-day window for Iranian oil “on the water” due to regional conflict,” PTI cited Ritolia as saying. Imports from Iran had ceased from May, 2019 following US sanctions on Iranian oil tightening in 2018. The volumes were replaced by Middle Eastern, US and other grades.
Vadinar, where reports said the ship was headed, is home to the oil refinery of Russian oil giant Rosneft-backed Nayara Energy. The US window for Iranian oil lifts on expires April 19. An estimated 95 million barrels of Iranian oil is on vessels on sea, PTI reported.
‘Sufficient quantities of petrol, diesel available’
Meanwhile, Sujata Sharma, joint secretary at the ministry of petroleum and natural gas, said that India currently has “sufficient quantities of petrol and diesel available.”
“To ensure adequate availability of ATF and diesel in the domestic market, the Government of India has also imposed an export levy…” Sharma said during the inter-ministerial briefing. The joint secretary also appealed to the citizens to “avoid panic buying.”
