India’s IOCL to import two million tonnes of oil from Rosneft

State-owned Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) has signed a contract with Russian energy firm Rosneft to import two million tonnes (Mt) of oil.

The oil will be supplied via the port of Novorossiysk by the end of this year.

As part of the signing, Indian Petroleum & Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin discussed the ongoing joint projects, including Sakhalin-1, Taas-Yuryakh, the Vankor cluster field, Far East LNG, and Nayara Energy.

According to Rosneft, a separate topic of discussion was also held regarding Indian companies’ participation in implementing the Vostok Oil project in Russia’s Krasnoyarsk Territory.

Minister Pradhan said that the country has already made a principal decision to participate in the project.

In a press statement, Rosneft said: “In order to negotiate the terms of Indian companies’ entering Vostok Oil in the shortest time possible the parties agreed to create a regular working group of representatives of Russian and Indian companies.

“The implementation of the project guarantees that the task to increase the cargo traffic on the Northern Sea Route up to 80Mt by 2024 set by the President of the Russian Federation will be achieved.”

Rosneft owns a 49.13% stake in Indian firm Nayara Energy (formerly Essar Oil Limited).

Nayara owns and operates a 20Mtpa refinery in Vadinar, Gujarat, India.

Under the first stage, $850m will be invested to construct a petrochemical unit in Vadinar in next two years.

In March 2019, IOCL commissioned the Rs51.5bn ($734.82m) Ennore LNG import and regasification terminal at Kamarajar Port, Ennore, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.