State-run Indian Oil Corp (IOC) has bought around 2 million barrels of West African crude via its second tender for November, including its first cargo of Angolan Hungo crude, traders said on Monday. It bought a 950,000-barrel cargo of light sweet Nigerian Qua Iboe crude, together with a cargo of medium sweet Hungo, which has a higher sulphur content, traders said.
Indian Oil Corp bought the cargoes from trading company Mercuria, only the second time the trader is seen winning an Indian Oil Corp tender. Full details of the tender had yet to emerge and the refiner may have bought more than 2 million barrels in its tender, though two traders said this was unlikely.
Indian Oil Corp has strived to diversify its crude imports to limit its dependency on Nigerian supplies, which have been regularly disrupted by attacks over the past few years. Royal Dutch Shell said on Friday it was extending a force majeure on Nigerian Bonny Light crude oil exports in place since late July, due to security concerns in the oil-rich Niger Delta region and because it found more leaks at a Bonny Light pipeline.
Over the past few months, Indian Oil Corp has bought new grades, such as Angolan Plutonio, or crudes it had not bought before, such as Gabonese Rabi Light, or those it had not run for a long time, like Nigerian Amenam, traders said. Upgrades at its refineries as well new plants will also allow IOC to try a wider range of grades.
The 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery at Paradip in eastern India, which will be built by the first quarter of 2012, will raise the ratio of high-sulphur crude Indian Oil Corp processes to 76 percent from the current 50 percent, Indian Oil Corp's director of refineries, B.N Bankapur said last Friday.
Indian Oil Corp has not bought any Asia-Pacific crude for November so far, a change from the purchases for the third quarter, when it bought at least one 600,000-barrel cargo of Malaysian crude a month via spot tenders. Indian Oil Corp is India's largest oil refiner, operating about 10 refineries spread across the country for a total capacity of 1.204 million bpd. It tenders several times a month to buy crude, mainly West African barrels.