A ship carrying millions of barrels of Russian oil made a U-turn in the South China Sea and reached India.

Tanker ‘Aqua Titan’ loaded with Russian crude oil reached New Mangaluru Port on Sunday morning. The ship was flying the Cameroonian flag and anchored at the port at around 11:30 am. According to ship tracker Marine Traffic, the tanker was initially headed for China but changed its course in the South China Sea and turned towards India. In mid-March the ship was in South-East Asian waters, where it made a sudden U-turn and headed towards India.

It brought crude oil from Russia, which was loaded from a port on the Baltic Sea in late January. The ship has been chartered by Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL). It contains about 7.7 lakh barrels (about 1.1 lakh tonnes) of oil.

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Ship reached Mangalore Port

Shipping Ministry’s Special Secretary Rajesh Kumar Sinha had said on March 19 that this tanker will reach New Mangalore Port on March 21. Earlier, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal had said that there was no information about this and said that an update would be given later.

This incident has happened at a time when oil supplies are being affected due to the US-Iran war in the Middle East. The global oil crisis has deepened due to the closure of important routes like the Strait of Hormuz.

America had said about giving exemption

Amidst this crisis, the US Trump administration has given India a temporary exemption of 30 days to buy Russian oil. US Treasury Secretary Scott Besant said the waiver was granted because Iran was trying to “hold down” global energy. White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt said India has been a ‘good ally’ and had previously stayed away from oil under Russian sanctions, so the permission has now been granted temporarily.

According to Bloomberg report, after US permission, Indian refiners have bought more than 30 million barrels of Russian oil.

Many other oil tankers also arrived

Apart from this, several other oil tankers have also arrived in India recently. Indian ship ‘Jag Ladki’ arrived at Mundra Port in Gujarat carrying Murban crude from UAE. In Mumbai, a Liberian flagged ship ‘Shenlong’ passed safely through the Strait of Hormuz via Saudi Arabia.

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Also, two Indian ships ‘Shivalik’ and ‘MT Nanda Devi’ reached India with LPG. All this shows an attempt to strengthen India’s energy security amid the global oil crisis.