Tankers: India Emerging As a Leading Market for Seaborne Crude Oil Imports
Hellenic Shipping News
rude tankers carrying oil into India have been in high demand since the start of 2026. In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Banchero Costa said that “after a modest upturn in 2024, when global crude oil loadings increased by +0.8% y-o-y, things picked up further in 2025, with full-year volumes increasing by +2.0% y-o-y. In Jan-Feb 2026, global crude oil loadings increased by +6.3% y-o-y to 362.5 mln tonnes, excluding all cabotage trade, according to vessels tracking data from LSEG. Exports from the Arabian Gulf were up by +2.7% y-o-y to 142.6 mln t in Jan-Feb 2026, accounting for 39.3% of global seaborne crude trade. Exports from Russian ports (including oil of Kazakh origin) decreased by -4.7% y-o-y to 34.3 mln t in Jan-Feb 2026, or 9.5% of global trade. From South America, exports surged by +30.1% y-o-y to 41.8 mln t. From the USA, exports went down by -3.8% y-o-y at 29.1 mln tonnes in Jan-Feb 2026. From West Africa, exports decreased by -8.8% y-o-y to 25.1 mln t. From ASEAN exports jumped by +56.7% y-o-y to 20.9 mln t in Jan-Feb 2026 (this inevitably includes trans-shipped Iranian and Russian cargoes)”.
According to Banchero Costa, “in terms of demand, the top seaborne importer of crude oil in Jan-Feb 2026 was Mainland China, accounting for 24.0% of global trade. Volumes into China increased by +18.7% y-o-y to 87.7 mln t in Jan-Feb 2026, from 73.8 mln t in Jan-Feb 2025. Imports into the EU27 decreased by -1.7% y-o-y to 73.4 mln t, accounting for 20.1% of global trade. To ASEAN, imports increased by +1.2% y-o-y to 42.6 mln t. To South Korea, imports declined by -4.1% y-o-y to 20.8 mln t. Imports into the USA increased +30.0% y-o-y to 21.8 mln t in Jan-Feb 2026. To Japan, imports increased by +1.9% yo-y to 18.9 mln t. India is now again the world’s fourth largest seaborne importer of crude oil, after China, the EU, and ASEAN”.
“India accounted for 11.4% of global crude oil trade in Jan-Feb 2026. Seaborne imports to India increased by +2.4% y-o-y in Jan-Dec 2023 to 228.1 mln t, and then by +2.5% y-o-y in Jan-Dec 2024 to 233.4 mln t, and then by +2.5% y-o-y in Jan-Dec 2025 to 239.4 mln t. In Jan-Feb 2026, crude imports into India increased +7.2% y-o-y to 41.9 mln t, from 39.1 mln t in Jan-Feb 2025. About 60% of crude oil volumes discharged in India in Jan-Feb 2026 were carried in VLCCs, about 27% were carried in Suezmaxes, and about 13% in Aframaxes. Top crude discharge ports in India in Jan-Feb 2026 were Jamnagar (12.2 mln tonnes of crude oil in Jan-Feb 2026), Vadinar (9.1 mln t), Paradip (5.2 mln t), Mundra (3.9 mln t), Mumbai (2.9 mln t), Cochin (2.5 mln t), Visakhapatnam (2.1 mln t), New Mangalore (2.1 mln t), Chennai (1.7 mln t). In terms of sources of the shipments, there has been understandably a bit of politically driven reshuffling in recent years.
Seaborne imports from Russian ports (which includes both oil of Russian origin and oil of non-Russian origin such as Kazakh oil), surged by +126.6% y-o-y in Jan-Dec 2023 to 75.5 mln tonnes, from 33.3 mln tonnes in 2022, and were twenty times the 4.1 mln t of 2021. In Jan-Dec 2024, they increased further by +8.6% y-o-y to 82.0 mln t. In Jan-Dec 2025, volumes from Russia to India corrected down by – 3.0% y-o-y to 79.5 mln t, from 82.0 mln t in Jan-Dec 2024. In Jan-Feb 2026, volumes from Russia to India fell further by -31.0% y-o-y to 8.9 mln t, from 12.9 mln t in Jan-Feb 2025. Russian ports have now dropped back to be the second largest source of seaborne oil to India, accounting for 21.2% of volumes in Jan-Feb 2026, well behind the Arabian Gulf with 56.7%, pushing West Africa to third place with just 6.9% and the USA to 4.9%. Shipments from the Arabian Gulf to India increased by +17.7% y-o-y in Jan-Feb 2026 to 23.8 mln t. Shipments from West Africa to India surged by +110.7% in Jan-Feb 2026 to 2.9 mln t. Imports from the USA also increased by +23.8% y-o-y in Jan-Feb 2026 to 2.1 mln t”, Banchero Costa concluded.
Nikos Roussanoglou, Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide
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