US crude oil to arrive in Oct.

New Delhi, July 10: India, the world’s thirdlargest oil importer, has sealed a first deal to import crude oil from the US and the shipment is expected to touch Indian shores in October.

The deal, by state-owned Indian Oil (IOC), comes within weeks of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US when President Donald Trump talked of his country looking to export more energy products to India.

“We have bought 2 million barrels of crude oil from North America comprising 1.6 million barrels of US Mars crude and 4 lakh barrels of Western Canadian Select,” IOC director (finance) A.K. Sharma told PTI here.

US Mars is a heavy, high-sulphur grade which will be processed at IOC’s newest refinery at Paradip in Odisha.

“Given the current international oil markets where the differential between Brent (the benchmark crude or marker crude that serves as a reference price for buyers in western world) and Dubai (which serves as a benchmark for countries in the east) has narrowed.

“Even after including the shipping cost, buying US crude proved to be very cost competitive to us and so we bought one very large crude carrier cargo through a tender from the spot (or current) market,” he said.

Mr Sharma said the company will buy more crude from the US if the market conditions remain favourable for such purchases.

The IOC move has already led to more purchases by other Indian refiners. —

STATE-OWNED Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd too tendered to buy one million barrels of crude either for loading on August 16 to September 5 or delivery on September 26 to October 15