Guyana Sends 1 Million-Barrel Cargo Of Oil To India At Below Market Value Price From Liza Block

The first cargo from Guyana’s oil production departed this month to India in a vessel chartered by trading firm Trafigura, data from Refinitiv Eikon showed on Tuesday. The cargo was bought at lower than market value price by HPCL-Mittal Energy Ltd, a joint venture between state-run Hindustan Petroleum Corp and steel tycoon L.N. Mittal, a source with knowledge of the matter said. HMEL operates a 226,000 barrel per day (bpd) Bathinda refinery in the northern state of Punjab.

The 1 million-barrel cargo of Guyana’s Liza light sweet crude set sail on March 2 on Marshall Islands-flagged tanker Sea Garnet bound for India’s Mundra port NSE -4.29 %, where it is set to arrive around April 8. The cargo’s charterer is Trafigura, according to the Eikon data.

Guyana’s natural resources minister, Vickram Bharrat, told Reuters this month that the crude onboard the Sea Garnet had been originally allocated to New York-based Hess Corp, one of the companies producing crude in Guyana along with Exxon Mobil Corp, and delivered to Trafigura. Bharrat said he did not know the identity of the cargo’s ultimate buyer.

Trafigura, Hess and HMEL declined to comment on commercial matters.

Since Guyana began exporting crude in early 2020, its oil has flowed mainly to the United States, China, Panama and the Caribbean, according to tanker-tracking data.