India Buys Russian Ural’s Crude to Protect Fertilizers Sector Interests

Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) state-owned top Crude Oil refiner in India, has bought Russian Urals crude after a prolonged wait of two years, just after spot differentials slumped. This Russian flagship-grade Crude typically headed to Europe and seeks the interest of the Indian buyers after its discount in comparison to the Brent crude oil fell to the widest since early 2005. This development is majorly an outcome of the rising tensions in the eastern European region between Russia and Ukraine.  

Last week the International Crude Oil offers soared drastically over the USD 100/barrel mark after Russia invaded Ukraine. Whereas, being an agricultural dependent economy coupled with the spiked food pricing index and the global shortage of fertilizers amidst the restriction of export of DAP and phosphate-based fertilizers component from China till the end of the second quarter of 2022. Therefore, the consistent chain of events of the geopolitical turmoils jeopardizes the favorable interests and netbacks of the Fertilizers sector in India.

The consistent strengthening crude oil offers showcased a direct impact in the quotation for Sulphur and derivatives value chain. Therefore, the IOC on a recent tender bought 2 million barrels of Ural Crude from European traders such as Vitol and Trafigura for April delivery. Although, the IOC announced recently that it will no longer accept cargoes of Russian crude oil and Kazakh CPC blend on a free-on-board (FOB) basis amidst the ongoing insurance risk with the development on the geopolitical stage.

According to the ChemAnalyst, since the minister-level talks of the OPEC+ alliance in Q3 of 2021, the Sulphur prices were proportionally impacted besides the rising offers of Crude Oil in the International market. Such market sentiments were forced the Indian authorities to subsidize the component for the Sulphur based fertilizers in the Indian domestic market till Q1 2022. Although the constraints in the Fertilizers sector are likely to prevail till the next quarter, the recent setback on a global scale infused several uncertainties besides making the market sentiments volatile. Therefore, Indian authorities were pushing to safeguard their interest for the Fertilizers sector.