Bloomberg quoted ship tracking data as saying that the Aqua Titan is expected to arrive in New Mangalore on March 21 with Urals oil already desealed from a Baltic Sea port at the end of January.
Initially, this ship signaled Rizhao port of China as a destination before turning around in the South China Sea in mid-March, a few days after the US gave India the green light to temporarily increase oil purchases from Russia.
Indian refineries bought up to 30 million barrels of Russian oil in the week after Washington gave the green light to help New Delhi cope with supply losses from the Middle East due to Iranian war.
Since then, more and more countries have been allowed to resume Russian oil imports, creating conditions for oil flows to continue to be adjusted away from China - a market that used to play the role of "end point" in recent months after India cut purchases.
The return of customers, including Japan and South Korea, is forecast to create more momentum to push up oil prices.
At least 7 Russian oil tankers have diverted their destinations in the middle of the journey, from China to India, according to data from Vortexa Ltd. Currently, all major oil refineries in India have increased demand for crude oil imports from Russia.
In a separate development, the oil tanker Suezmax Zouzou N. is signaling towards Sikka port (India) as its next destination, with an expected arrival time on March 25, according to ship tracking data.
According to Kpler, this ship is transporting CPC blend crude oil from Kazakhstan. Previously, the ship left Novorossiysk in the Black Sea (Russia) and moved to the waters off Rizhao (China), before suddenly turning around in early March to divert to India.
