Over the past month, fourteen tankers carrying a total of 11 million barrels of Russian oil to India have frozen, turned around, or turned off their transponders.
Source. Bloomberg writes about it.
This may indicate an increase in disruptions in oil supplies from Russia, the agency writes.
The actions of Russian tankers, which are atypical for the last two years, began after the United States raised the requirements for the oil ceiling at the end of last year.
In addition, Sovcomflot, which owns 8 of the 14 tankers noted by Bloomberg, and several "little-known" traders who started working with Russian oil in 2022 after the main players refused to use it, were sanctioned.
Bloomberg calls this the largest sanctions against Russian oil trade since the start of the war in Ukraine.
Background. Earlier, the agency, citing data from the analytical company Kpler, reported that India's imports of Russian oil fell in December to the lowest level since January 2023.
This was due to problems with payment due to the tightening of sanctions, the agency wrote at the time.
On Wednesday, Indian Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said that supplies had decreased not because of payment problems, but because of the unattractiveness of discounts.
It was also reported that India stopped accepting tankers with Russian oil after sanctions were imposed against Putin's "shadow fleet."