Indian state-controlled refiner Bharat Peroleum (BPCL) said it has signed a deal with BP to buy 1mn bl/month of US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for four months starting in June.
BPCL has also separately bought a spot tender of 2mn bl of WTI crude for loading in April.
It bought 500,000 bl of WTI crude in February, according to Vortexa. The refiner imported around 251,000 b/d of crude during 1 January-20 March, of which 71,000 b/d was from the UAE and 24,000 b/d was from Saudi Arabia. India imported 4.65 mn b/d of crude during this period, of which 101,000 b/d was from the US.
BPCL buys crude for its three refineries at Mumbai, Kochi and Bina. The firm is planning to shut a 90,000 b/d crude unit at its 310,000 b/d Kochi refinery in September. A unit at the company's 241,000 b/d Mumbai refinery was shut for a few days in January.
The tanker Hafnia Seine had hit a single point mooring (SPM) buoy on 10 March at BPCL's crude import facility in west India's Sikka. The SPM at Sikka serves as an outlet for transporting crude to BPCL's 157,000 b/d Bina refinery in central India's Madhya Pradesh state.
