Indian state refiner buys 2 million barrels of Nigerian crude to bypass the Hormuz bottleneck

India's state-owned refiner Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) has bought 2 million barrels of crude oil from Nigeria. Trading sources told Reuters on Tuesday, 4 August 2026 (13 Mordad 1405), that the company acquired Okwuibome and Utapate grades from commodity trader Glencore through a tender. The cargo will feed HPCL's refinery in the state of Rajasthan, which can process 180,000 barrels per day and in which Hindustan Petroleum holds a 74% stake, with the rest held by the Rajasthan state government.

Since the start of the Iran war, Indian refiners have scrambled to replace lost West Asian supply with deliveries from producers farther away. India's imports of Russian crude have risen sharply in recent months, hitting an all-time high in July and accounting for more than half of the country's total crude imports, but the report says even that is not enough and refiners are seeking supply that does not have to transit West Asian chokepoints, from Angola in Africa to Venezuela in South America.

HPCL managing director Vikas Kaushal had earlier told the Indian outlet Economic Times that the company received almost nothing from its term contracts in the first quarter because many cargoes were stuck on the western side of the Strait of Hormuz. India is the world's third largest crude oil importer, and the redirection of its purchases is one of the direct consequences of the Hormuz disruption for the global oil market.