India’s HPCL Struggles to Secure Oil Tankers as Hormuz Risks Persist

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, a major Indian state-owned refiner known as HPCL, is having difficulties securing tankers to navigate the Strait of Hormuz and obtain supplies from the Gulf, according to chairman Vikas Kaushal speaking to Bloomberg. Despite crude oil flows from the Gulf via Hormuz nearing pre-war levels, buyers are still facing a shortage of available vessels and last-minute decisions by shipowners to avoid sailing through the Strait to load crude oil from inside the Persian Gulf.

According to Kaushal in an interview in Abu Dhabi, finding vessels for the available loading dates can be a challenge even if crude is available for purchase from the Gulf.

Before the war, HPCL typically picked up cargoes from within the Gulf. However, due to vessel scarcity, war premiums, and shipowners' reluctance to risk the transits, the company has now shifted to the spot market to arrange for deliveries directly at its refineries. The surge in oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, primarily through ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman, is leaving supertankers idle for weeks waiting for the transfers outside the Strait, restricting the availability of very large crude carriers (VLCCs) for other key oil trade routes globally.

The inefficient oil loadings in the Middle East and the tight supertanker market resulting from these issues have had a ripple effect on the market for smaller vessels, such as Aframax and Suezmax, whose demand and daily rates have also increased due to the shortage of supertankers. These sky-high rates add millions of U.S. dollars to the cost of a single crude oil cargo, further driving up oil and fuel prices.