Gulf Insider
India rejected Russia’s offer to sell it liquefied natural gas subject to US sanctions, despite a huge shortfall driven by Middle East tensions, leaving a tanker bound for India in limbo as talks continue on permitted cargoes, Reuters reports. The stance highlights the fine balance the world’s third-biggest oil importer and consumer is seeking to strike between securing energy supplies and avoiding LNG cargoes on which the U.S. has placed sanctions, which are harder to disguise and carry greater compliance risk. It also underscores the limits of Moscow’s ability to pivot its LNG exports to new markets. India’s reluctance has left an LNG cargo from Russia’s U.S.-sanctioned Portovaya plant in the Baltic Sea unable to discharge, despite indicating India as its destination in mid-April, one of the sources said. The vessel was tracked despite documentation suggesting the cargo was non-Russian, the source added. Reuters had reported in mid-April, citing LSEG shipping data, that the 138,200-cubic-metre tanker Kunpeng was heading to the Dahej LNG import terminal in western India. The vessel is now near Singaporean waters with no destination broadcast, according to LSEG. India, the biggest buyer of Russian seaborne crude, conveyed its decision not to buy LNG that was under sanction to Russia’s Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin […]
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