Bharat Petroleum has purchased a cargo of Emirati Upper Zakum crude as it attempts to circumvent sanctions on its usual crude supplier based in Russia, according to Reuters.
The company’s order of 2mn barrels – set to be delivered in December – was bought on the spot market, the same place where it had also purchased Russian crude, which had been shipped at a rate of 2mn barrels per month.
Bharat Petroleum’s use of Russian crude is not unique to the country, with various other entities known to buy large quantities before the US opted to introduce a new set of sanctions on Russia’s largest crude exporters, Lukoil and Rosneft. Since then, certain Indian refiners have started to look elsewhere, with some settling on Middle Eastern producers instead.
Despite these sanctions, some of Russia’s biggest foreign buyers still consist of Indian buyers – with Indian Oil Corp. having purchased five cargoes of Russian crude oil for delivery in December from non-sanctioned sellers last week. These companies typically circumvent sanctions by buying from non-sanctioned sellers, according to Reuters.
Nonetheless, sanctions have begun to put off some buyers, choosing instead to order crude from West Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas, which often carries somewhat of a premium in comparison to Russian oil.
According to Reuters, this could prove to be a problem in the long term, with India being a net importer of oil, buying 80% of the crude it uses. With this, price fluctuations often leave the country vulnerable and leave it at the mercy of sanctions.
Indeed, Indian refiners are not the only groups to see the effects of US sanctions, with
The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has also sanctioned six Indian companies for their involvement in trading petrochemicals produced in Iran, according to a report released by Business & Human Rights Resource Centre in September.
Companies sanctioned included Global Industrial Chemicals Limited, Ramniklal S Gosalia and Company, Persistent Petrochem Private Limited, Kanchan Polymers, Ensa Ship Management, Shreeji Gems, and Alchemical Solutions Private Limited – all of which traded significant amounts of Iranian product worth millions in 2024 and early 2025.
Currently, all companies listed are now banned from engaging in any transactions with US entities or individuals, with all property and interests within US jurisdiction frozen. Other firms with significant holdings in any of the sanctioned entities (50% or more) were also banned from dealing with US bodies.
The US’s expansion of its sanctions programme comes as part of Washington’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign, aimed at damaging Iran’s petrochemical export networks – allegedly used to fund destabilising activities – and Russia’s crude exports, used to fund the ongoing war in Ukraine.
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