- Crude Oil-
- India’s crude oil imports from Russia surged to 1.97 million barrels per day (mbpd) in June, the highest since July 2023, due to reduced shipments to China, according to Vortexa data.
- This marks a 15% month-on-month (m-o-m) increase and a 2% annual rise. Both public and private refiners imported record quantities.
- Public refiners, including IOCL, BPCL, and HPCL, imported a 12-month high.
- However, imports from traditional suppliers like Iraq and Saudi Arabia declined.
- Crude oil imports from the U.S. increased for the second consecutive month.
- Coking Coal:
- The Steel Ministry is diversifying its coking coal sourcing, identifying Russia and Mongolia as key new markets.
- Plans are underway to establish a domestic mechanism for determining coking coal prices and creating an index.
- As the world’s second-largest steelmaker and the largest importer of coking coal, India currently sources 70% of its supplies from Australia.
- There are plans to trial two shipments of coking coal from Mongolia over the next three to six months via the Trans-Siberian-Mongolian railway.
- The ‘one nation, one buying’ approach for coking coal, similar to Japan and China, is under consideration.
Dig Deeper: Locate on a map India’s coalfields of Coking coal.
