Key facts
- HPCL chairman Vikas Kaushal said finding vessels for available loading dates in the Persian Gulf is a challenge.
- Kaushal said shipowners sometimes withdraw contracted vessels at the last minute and refuse the transit.
- HPCL has shifted to spot-market purchases with delivery at its refineries instead of loading inside the Gulf.
- Crude flows through Hormuz have recovered to nearly pre-war levels, largely via ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman, per the report.
- The report says those transfers tie up supertankers for weeks, tightening VLCC supply on other routes.
Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), an Indian state-owned refiner, is struggling to hire tankers to move crude through the Strait of Hormuz and load cargoes inside the Persian Gulf, chairman Vikas Kaushal told Bloomberg in an interview in Abu Dhabi.
Kaushal said vessel availability, not crude supply, is the constraint. "The main challenge has been hiring of ships. Even if we have crude available for purchase from the Persian Gulf, sometimes finding vessels for the available loading dates is a challenge," he said. He added that a contracted ship is sometimes withdrawn at the last minute when the owner says he cannot make the voyage.
Before the war, HPCL usually picked up cargoes inside the Gulf. Vessel scarcity, war premiums and shipowners unwilling to risk the transit have pushed it to the spot market, arranging deliveries directly at its refineries.
Crude flows from the Gulf through Hormuz have recovered to nearly pre-war levels, largely through ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman, according to the report. Those transfers tie up supertankers for weeks waiting outside the Strait, limiting very large crude carrier availability on other routes.
The tightness has spread to smaller Aframax and Suezmax vessels, where demand and daily rates have also risen, the report said. It said high freight rates add millions of dollars to the cost of a single crude cargo.