Almost 5 million barrels of Russian Sokol oil have not reached Indian refineries over the past four weeks: tankers that regularly delivered Russian oil to India have stopped on their way to the country.
Source. This was reported by Bloomberg with reference to data on tracking the movement of tankers.
Since mid-November, the United States has imposed sanctions against eight tankers that, according to them, violated the price ceiling for Russian oil. Six of them belong to Sovcomflot, although they are registered to companies in different countries, including the UAE.
The US sanctions may be one of the reasons why Sokol's shipments to India have been slowed down, the agency writes. One of the ships subject to the restrictive measures, the NS Century, which regularly transported oil to the port of Vadinar, stopped off the coast of Sri Lanka two days after the US announcement on November 16 and has been drifting there ever since. Over the past week, it has been joined by two more Sovcomflot tankers headed for the same port with Sokol oil.
In November, Reuters reported that three tankers under Washington's sanctions were regularly delivering Sokol oil to India.
On Wednesday, the G7 announced tougher measures to implement the sanctions. They are designed to lower Russian oil prices below the $60 per barrel ceiling and prevent suppliers from defrauding Western insurance and financial companies.
Three more tankers were still supposed to arrive at the Indian port of Paradip, but they stopped before reaching their destination, Bloomberg writes. These are the Krymsk, which has been drifting about 500 kilometers from the port since December 4, the Nellis, and the Livarny Prospect.
Background. In early December, it was reported that the United States had imposed sanctions on three more owners of Putin's "shadow fleet" of tankers.