• 3 minutes e-car sales collapse
  • 6 minutes America Is Exceptional in Its Political Divide
  • 11 minutes Perovskites, a ‘dirt cheap’ alternative to silicon, just got a lot more efficient
  • 11 mins GREEN NEW DEAL = BLIZZARD OF LIES
  • 5 days The United States produced more crude oil than any nation, at any time.
  • 10 days e-truck insanity
  • 9 days Oil Stocks, Market Direction, Bitcoin, Minerals, Gold, Silver - Technical Trading <--- Chris Vermeulen & Gareth Soloway weigh in
  • 6 days How Far Have We Really Gotten With Alternative Energy
  • 8 days James Corbett Interviews Irina Slav of OILPRICE.COM - "Burn, Hollywood, Burn!" - The Corbett Report
  • 9 days The European Union is exceptional in its political divide. Examples are apparent in Hungary, Slovakia, Sweden, Netherlands, Belarus, Ireland, etc.
  • 10 days Biden's $2 trillion Plan for Insfrastructure and Jobs
  • 10 days "What’s In Store For Europe In 2023?" By the CIA (aka RFE/RL as a ruse to deceive readers)

Indian Refineries Slash Middle East Oil Imports As Storage Fills Up

Due to plummeting fuel demand and overflowing storage capacity, at least three oil refiners in India have asked for lower crude oil imports for May from the Middle East, including from the world’s top exporter Saudi Arabia, officials at the refiners told Reuters on Wednesday.

Two oil refiners will be cutting their crude oil imports from Saudi Arabia by between 66 percent and 80 percent for May, as India – population 1.3 billion people – went into a nationwide lockdown at the end of March. The lockdown has since been extended to May 3.  

Due to the lockdown and to India’s struggles to contain the spread of the coronavirus, fuel demand in the world’s third-largest oil importer is plummeting, so refineries are cutting run rates and struggling to store crude and refined products in dwindling available storage capacity.

“Some Indian refiners have cancelled their shipments for April and May,” a source with a Mideast oil producer told Reuters, confirming the crash in India’s oil demand. “They will take these cargoes in the later part of the year to meet their annual commitment,” the source told Reuters.

Earlier this month, Indian Oil Corp (IOC), the country’s biggest refiner and fuel retailer, was said to have declared a force majeure on oil imports from some of its top oil suppliers, including Saudi Arabia.

With demand collapsing, India’s oil refiners have already filled 95 percent of their combined storage capacity for fuel of 85 million barrels, officials at three state oil refiners told Bloomberg on Wednesday. Even the tanks at the 66,000 fuel stations in India are full, as more than a billion people are under lockdown and not driving.

In the first two weeks of April, India’s consumption of gasoline and diesel—more than half of the country’s oil demand—crashed by over 60 percent, according to Bloomberg estimates. 

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

ADVERTISEMENT

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:



Join the discussion | Back to homepage



Leave a comment

Leave a comment

EXXON Mobil -0.35
Open57.81 Trading Vol.6.96M Previous Vol.241.7B
BUY 57.15
Sell 57.00
Oilprice - The No. 1 Source for Oil & Energy News