Following the US’s October lifting of sanctions, Bharat Petroleum Corp., the state-owned oil refiner in India, might be the most recent local company to purchase Venezuelan oil.
Refineries head of BPCL Sanjay Khanna revealed during an event on Wednesday that the company is considering purchasing oil from Venezuela.
Khanna stated at a business gathering, “Our refineries are capable of processing Venezuelan oil, and we have given our international trade (department) okay to buy it.”
He did, however, emphasise that BPCL’s imports of Russian oil will not be threatened by the Venezuelan imports.
Since the sanctions were lifted, Reliance Industries, Indian Oil Corp, and HPCL-Mittal Energy from India have reserved cargoes of Venezuelan oil.
Prior to US sanctions, Venezuela was Venezuela’s top supplier of oil to India, the third-largest oil consumer in the world. In 2021, Chinese rivals gained business from Indian oil businesses as a result of these bans. Those involved in the oil trade have been waiting to see if India will resume purchasing oil from Venezuela ever since the US temporarily lifted sanctions on the country’s oil sector in October.
India used to purchase over 10 million barrels of oil from Venezuela each month before the sanctions. Reliance purchased five large oil tankers on average each month from Venezuela in 2018 and 2019, according to Viktor Katona, an analyst at Kpler, a business that analyses this data.
Reliance Industries, a private refiner, negotiated for the booking of two supertankers, C. Earnest and C. Genuine, according to a Bloomberg story earlier this month. From December to the beginning of January, these tankers are scheduled to load crude oil shipments from Venezuela. In another arrangement, Reliance contracted the Very Large petroleum Carrier Eucal to deliver Venezuelan petroleum to India in the first part of December. These three ships can transport up to six million barrels of crude oil together.
Disney has been searching for potential buyers for its internet and TV businesses in the nation recently. Reliance Industries was rumoured to be interested in purchasing the US-based entertainment conglomerate in October. The Mukesh Ambani-led business and Walt Disney are reportedly finalising the terms of a non-binding term sheet to combine their Indian media businesses, according to recent developments.
According to the article, Reliance is expected to pay cash for a 51% share in the prospective Viacom18 business, while Disney controls 49%. It further highlighted the expectation that both firms will have equal representation on the board of the new entity.
