Avoiding Russian Oil Sanctions, Indian Refiners Buy 4 Million Barrels from Guyana

Written by Paul Wiseman for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land Texas)

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Summary

Responding to U.S. sanctions on Russia's top oil exporters, India turns to Guyana's new offshore Stabroek oil. Two tankers totaling 4 million barrels are heading to India now.

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India Seeks Other Oil Suppliers

With the introduction of U.S. sanctions on Russia's top oil exporters, Rosneft PJSC (Moscow) and Lukoil PJSC (Moscow), many nations are scrambling to find other suppliers. India, as a major world importer, is going to great lengths, literally, to do that.

The journey for two very large crude carriers (VLCCs), Cobal Nova and Olympic Lion, will be 11,000 miles, from Guyana's Stabroek block to refineries in India. They left in late November and are expected to arrive in January 2026.

The Olympic Lion is loaded with Golden Arrowhead crude purchased from Exxon Mobil Corporation (Spring, Texas) via a tender in October. It is headed to a state-owned Indian Oil Corporation (New Delhi, India) refinery in Paradip on India's east coast. The refinery processes 300,000 barrels per day.

A mixed cargo of Liza and Unity Gold grades--1 million barrels each--also purchased from ExxonMobil, are on board the Cobalt Nova. It is headed to plants operated by Hindustan Petroleum (Mumbai, India), in either Mumbai or Visakhapatnam, arriving in late December 2025 or early January 2026.

What's What

Golden Arrowhead crude was first shipped earlier in November, 2025, to a China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) (Beijing, China) refinery in China. It is expected to be Guyana's lightest, at 36.5 API of density and 0.25% sulfur content, according to an assay seen by Reuters.

The Golden Arrowhead name comes from Guyana's national flag.

Liza is the first crude produced from Guyana's offshore Stabroek fields, from the Liza Destiny floating production, storage, and offloading unit (FPSO). It is categorized as medium sweet.

Unity Gold came from the Liza Unity FPSO beginning in February 2022. It is lighter and sweeter than Liza, but less so than Golden Arrowhead. Unity Gold is considered excellent for its high yields of transport fuels.

Replacing Russian Oil

These, the first VLCC shipments from Guyana since 2021, are among several moves India is making to respond to the U.S. sanctions, whose goal is to force Russia to the bargaining table regarding its invasion of Ukraine. Because of the size of India's Russian imports, this is a tall order.

India had been importing 1.7 million barrels per day of Russian oil, which is discounted due to existing restrictions on its sale. The new sanctions on Lukoil and Rosneft took effect in November. Also, in August, U.S. President Donald Trump had doubled tariffs on all products imported from India to 50%.

The challenges are real because, even though India imports from about 40 nations, Russia's 1.7 million barrels per day had been at the top of the list.

Others, in order from greatest and down, include Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Beyond that, India's suppliers are also mostly from the Middle East, although post-Trump-sanctions they have added the U.S., West Africa and Azerbaijan.

And India's oil minister Hardeep Singh Puri has stated that Brazil and Canada will also come into the mix in the near future.

Sneaky Fleet

A report by a European think tank, Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), which was released last Thursday said that, from January to September, India had dodged sanctions by importing 5.4 million tonnes (about 40 million barrels, depending on the oil's grade) of Russian oil aboard 30 vessels sailing under false flags. This oil was valued at about 2.1 billion euros (US$2.4 billion).

CREA said India was the largest recipient of false fleet oil shipments. In all, those shipments totaled about 11 million tonnes (80 million-88 million barrels) valued at about 4.7 billion euros (US5.5 billion) from 113 ships during that time frame.

The false-flag fleet is one way of subverting sanctions on Russian oil put in place by the U.S., EU, and other nations, also in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The fleet is mostly composed of aging tankers with hidden ownership, disabled tracking devices, falsified paperwork, and other means of making them hard to track. CREA reports that the fleet's count of 113 vessels is growing at an alarming rate. For example, it says, "CREA analysis found that there have been 90 vessels which have operated under false flags in September 2025 -- a six-fold increase from December 2024."

While Ukrainian negotiations have stutter-stepped since the first of the year, the U.S. hopes that increased pressure will bring all parties back to the negotiating table.

Key Takeaways

• Increasing pressure on Russia's attempts to circumvent existing embargoes on its oil exports is designed to bring them back to the peace process concerning Ukraine.
• India, a major worldwide importer, is turning to tankers from Guyana to fill the gap.
• Previously they had relied on "False Flag Fleet" tankers to smuggle cheap Russian oil to refineries.

By the Numbers

• 4 million: Barrels of Guyana crude on the way to India for December and January delivery
• 11,000: Miles those tankers must travel
• 1.7 million: Barrels per day of Russian oil imports India must replace

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