For India West Arctic Ocean becomes major source of crude

A new source of Russian crude has emerged for India – the West Arctic Ocean. This new activity which has only been seen this year, started around March on aframax and suezmax tankers, as data from energy analytics firm Vortexa shows.

Aframax tonne-miles out of the West Arctic Ocean were typically directed towards Europe, something that has changed in the months following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Russia’s seaborne crude exports to Asia increased by around 31% year-on-year to an average 1.6m barrels per day in the first 10 months of 2022. While China’s seaborne crude inflows from Russia surged by 36% year-on-year to an average of 780,000 barrels per day in the January to October period, India’s buying from Russia jumped to 450,000 barrels per day during the same period, compared with 90,000 barrels per day in the same period a year earlier.