India’s 100 mn barrel crude stocks could  cover 40-45 days if...

Key Highlights

• A closure of Strait of Hormuz would at first impact prompt cargo liftings.
• “However, refiners typically maintain commercial inventories, and cargoes already on water would continue to arrive, providing some short-term cushioning to the system,” he said adding in the event of a prolonged disruption, medium-term pressures would build through higher import costs, freight exposure and the need to reroute supplies over longer distances.
• “The country maintains strategic petroleum reserves alongside commercial inventories held by refiners and oil marketing companies.
• These buffers are intended to manage temporary supply shocks rather than sustained outages,” he said.
• “Based on Kpler inventory data, commercial crude stocks are around 100 million barrels, including volumes in the strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) facilities at Mangalore, Padur and Visakhapatnam.” With imports via the Strait of Hormuz averaging roughly 2.5 million barrels per day – about half of India’s just over 5 million bpd total crude imports – these combined reserves could theoretically cover around 40-45 days of imports in a crude disruption scenario, he said.