India’s largest fuel retailer Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has signed a contract with the Russian oil and gas giant Rosneft. The contract signed between the two will be to supply 2 million tonnes of crude oil to India by the end of this year (2020), via the port of Novorossiysk.
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) is now the maiden state-owned oil marketing company who has signed a contract with Rosneft. This deal was made during Igor Sechin’ (CEO of Rosneft) visit in India. A meeting was also held between Sechin and the oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
According to a statement made by Rosneft, “An important subject of talks between Sechin and Pradhan was the issue of providing Indian consumers with quality crude and petroleum-based products, including the increase in Russian oil supplies to India. During the meeting, the parties discussed the ongoing joint projects of Rosneft and Indian companies, including Sakhalin-1, Taas-Yuryakh, the Vankor cluster (a consortium of Indian companies owns 49% in the Vankor cluster field), Far East LNG, and Nayara Energy.”
The Rosneft’s statement also said that they would be creating representatives of regularly working group of both Indian and Russian companies. Further discussions were also made for the participation of Indian companies in the implementation of Vostok Oil project, which is situated in Krasnoyarsk territory of Russia. The proximity to the Northern sea route provides Vostok Oil a unique transport corridor which gives it a crucial competitive advantage – Enabling bidirectional supply of crude to European and Asian markets.
If we look at the current share of Nayara Energy - previously known as Essar Oil Limited, 49 percent are owned by Rosneft and Trafigura led consortium. Not only does Nayara own more than 5,600 petrol pumps across the country (India), but it supposedly owns and operates 20 million tonnes per year refinery at Vadinar in Gujarat.
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