Surge in India’s Import of Venezuelan Oil

India imported in June the highest volume of Venezuelan crude in 21 months, more than double the amount from May and more than 50% higher than in June 2018, Reuters reported on Monday, citing data provided by industry and shipping sources.
The surge in India’s imports of Venezuelan crude oil to 475,200 bpd in June was partially due to delayed cargoes from previous months, according to Reuters’ shipping sources. 
India, which stopped buying Iranian oil in May after the US removed all sanction waivers for Iran’s oil customers, continues to buy Venezuelan oil, despite earlier US assurances that private Indian refiners had stopped buying oil from Venezuela.
According to Reuters, there are two private refiners who continue to buy Venezuelan oil—Reliance Industries and Nayara Energy, who had struck term deals to buy crude from Venezuela’s state oil firm PDVSA before the US slapped sanctions on Venezuelan oil earlier this year.
Nayara Energy, formerly known as Essar Oil before Russia’s oil giant Rosneft bought a significant stake in the Indian refiner, also receives Venezuelan oil from Rosneft, which PDVSA sends to the Russians in exchange for repaying debt.
Reliance, for its part, has a 15-year term deal with the Venezuelan oil company from 2012 to buy up to 400,000 bpd of heavy crude oil.