India exports first fuel to Europe since ban on Russian crude-derived products

SINGAPORE: Reliance Industries has partially offloaded a jet fuel cargo in Italy, India’s first export to the region since a European Union ban on products derived from Russian oil took effect on January 21, data from ship trackers and trade sources showed.

India is one of the top buyers of Russian crude, and market players are closely monitoring its refined oil exports to Europe for signs of trade disruptions that could drive up prices for supply from elsewhere.

The EU’s ban on importing products produced from Russian crude is aimed at curbing oil revenues Moscow uses to fund the Ukraine war.

Reliance operates two refineries at its Jamnagar complex - one geared for exports and one for the domestic market. It said on November 20 that it stopped processing Russian crude at its export-oriented facility.

The Aframax tanker Liwa-V, chartered by Reliance, offloaded about 390,000 barrels of jet fuel, or around half its cargo, at the Fiumicino port near Rome between February 1 and February 4, Kpler, Vortexa and a trade source’s ship-tracking data showed.

The Liwa-V arrived in Italy around January 8 and waited outside the port for almost three weeks, the data showed. It was originally scheduled to unload the cargo by January 24, two separate trade sources said.

“The discharge has been delayed due to bad weather, the ship has already discharged substantial amount of cargo and is waiting outside the port to offload the cargo completely,” said a Reliance Industries’ spokesperson.

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As Western nations have sought to curtail their dependence on Russian energy over the war in Ukraine, India has been able to take advantage of Moscow’s discounted crude.

India exported 4.1 million metric tons of jet fuel to Europe last year, nearly three times the volume it shipped in 2021 before the outbreak of the conflict, Kpler data showed, and it supplied nearly 15% of Europe’s aviation fuel imports from 2022 to 2025.

Reliance told Reuters that it has been giving written declarations to European buyers and traders that Russian crude has not been used to produce fuels exported to Europe.

“Reliance maintains that segregation of diesel streams is possible, and one would expect the company to explore workarounds such as FOB (free-on-board) sales or blending operations should European buyers remain cautious,” Sparta Commodities’ analyst James Noel-Beswick said.

For January, only one other Indian jet fuel shipment on the tanker Karpathos is bound for Europe, shipping data from Kpler, LSEG and two trade sources showed.

Europe has yet to receive any diesel imports from India since the ban started.