Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the nation’s largest oil firm, has renewed a deal to buy up to 2 million tonnes of crude oil in 2022 from Russia’s Rosneft, the Russian oil producer said.
IOC had in February 2020 signed a deal with Rosneft Oil Company to import up to 2 million tonnes of oil via the port of Novorossiysk. In 2021, the deal envisaged supply of up to 1.7 million tonnes of crude oil but IOC bought just on parcel or shipload as the cost of transporting the oil made it uneconomical, when compared to alternatives.
This move came as a bid to diversify its oil import from the Middle East to meet its oil needs. India has tied up with Russia and US for this purpose. For 2022, the deal is for the supply of up to 2 million tonnes of oil from the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.
The signing took place during the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to India, during which he met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and held bilateral talks in an expanded format. Both the leaders have attached great importance to the development of all-around trade, economic and investment cooperation between the countries.
“It is important that cooperation between the companies develops in an integral format and covers the entire technological chain – from extraction to the sale of raw materials. I hope that our interaction with Indian Oil will develop within the framework of other projects.” India’s Ministry of External Affairs has listed out the 28 agreements signed during Putin’s visit.
IOC also signed a Statement of Intent of Collaboration with Russian petrochemicals company SIBUR to explore the feasibility of setting up a dual-feed cracker along with downstream units at its 15 million tonnes a year Paradip refinery in Odisha, the MEA said.
The IOC has further plans to expand in different vertices. In another pact with Gazpromneft, it is looking for VGO Hydrocracking Technology, Catalytic Iso-dewaxing for lobs and catalyst regeneration for fixed bed catalyst.
IOC is already an investor in some of Rosneft’s production projects in Russia, including Vankorneft and Taas-Yuryah. Since 2016, IOC along with ONGC Videsh Ltd, Oil India Limited and Bharat Petroresources own 49.9 per cent of the Vankorneft subsidiary. This company is located in Krasnoyarsk province and developing Vankor oil and gas condensate field – the largest among the fields that were discovered in Russia in the past 25 years.
Also, a consortium of IOC, Oil India and Bharat Petroresources owns 29.9 per cent of the company Taas Yuryakh Neftegazodobycha, which holds licenses for the areas of the Central Block of Srednebotuobinskoe Field and Kurungskiy license area (the other shareholders are Rosneft and BP).
Rosneft owns a 49.13 per cent stake in the Indian company Nayara Energy, which operates a 20 million tonnes a year capacity oil refinery at Vadinar in Gujarat. This refinery is the second-largest in India and one of the most technologically advanced in the world, the Rosneft statement said.
“The consortium is reviewing an option of a two-fold increase of the refining throughput at the Vadinar Refinery. In the first stage, the consortium plans to invest USD 850 million towards the building of a petrochemical unit in Vadinar within 2 years,” it said.
Nayara Energy’s business also includes a deep-water port that can harbour super large VLCC class tankers and one of the largest retail networks in India now comprising more than 5,600 petrol pumps.
