India to Buy Russian Crude Oil

Russian oil and gas giant Rosneft has signed a contract with India’s largest fuel retailer Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) for supply of 2 million tonne (MT) crude oil to India by end 2020.

The Moscow-headquartered integrated energy company said in a press release that the oil will be shipped to the refiner via the port of Novorossiysk.

The signing took place during the visit of the Chief Executive Officer of Rosneft Igor Sechin to New Delhi. During this visit, a working meeting was also held with Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas of India.

The parties discussed the ongoing joint projects of Rosneft and Indian companies, including Sakhalin-1, Taas-Yuryakh, the Vankor cluster (a consortium of Indian companies owns 49% in the Vankor cluster field), Far East LNG, and Nayara Energy.

A separate topic of discussion was the matter of Indian companies’ participation in implementing the Vostok Oil project aimed to establish a new world-class oil and gas province on the North of Russian Krasnoyarsk Territory.

Dharmendra Pradhan said that the Indian side has already made a principal decision to participate in the project. In order to negotiate the terms of Indian companies’ entering Vostok Oil in the shortest time possible the parties agreed to create a regular working group of representatives of Russian and Indian companies.

Vostok Oil’s competitive advantage lies in its proximity to the Northern Sea Route, a unique transport corridor. Its use provides the opportunity to supply crude from the project’s fields in two directions at once - to European and Asian markets.

The implementation of the project guarantees that the task to increase the cargo traffic on the Northern Sea Route up to 80 million tonnes by 2024 set by the President of the Russian Federation will be achieved.