'OMCs are incurring losses of Rs 1,000 crore per day due to the West Asia crisis.'
Infrastructure major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) reported a 3 per cent year-on-year decline in consolidated net profit for Q4 FY26, reaching 5,325.60 crore, primarily due to exceptional gains in the previous year. Despite this, the company's consolidated order book surged by 28 per cent to 7.4 trillion, with international orders accounting for 52 per cent.
'Historically, India has depended on the Middle Eastern Gulf for nearly 90 per cent of its LPG imports. Shifting to alternative suppliers is not something that can happen quickly.'
Indian refiners are recalibrating their crude sourcing strategy due to supply disruptions in West Asia, leading to Venezuela and Brazil emerging as top five suppliers in April, replacing traditional sources like Iraq and the United States.
India's state-run oil marketing companies (OMCs) are projected to incur under-recoveries of approximately Rs 80,000 crore on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) sales in FY27 if current loss levels persist, according to rating agency Icra.
The Indian government is actively developing a policy for flex-fuel vehicle adoption and aiming for 100 per cent ethanol blending in petrol to enhance energy self-reliance, particularly in light of supply disruptions from the West Asia conflict.
'The West Asia or the Gulf crisis has shown that what we develop as national infrastructure when things are not as bad as they could be, we forget to plan for adversities.'
Indian companies, however, are now paying a premium of $6-$7 a barrel for Russian oil, compared with discounts of $8-$10 a barrel before the start of the conflict.
India's net oil import bill could rise by $56 billion to $64 billion annually assuming global crude averages $110 to $115 per barrel in FY27.
24 Indian-flagged vessels with 677 Indian seafarers were currently located west of the Strait of Hormuz, and four vessels with 101 Indian seafarers were stationed east of the strategic waterway.
If the conflict continues for a prolonged period, State-run oil companies may have to review retail fuel prices accordingly.
India is well-stocked with inventories of crude oil and key petroleum products, including petrol, diesel, and aviation turbine fuel (ATF), to deal with short-term disruptions as the war intensifies in West Asia, Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri said on Tuesday.
Of the 1.32 trillion capex target for FY26, State-run oil firms have already spent 1.07 trillion in the first 10 months.
Private-sector oil refiner Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) last week received a general licence from the United States (US) government to buy Venezuelan oil, an industry executive said.
India could save $1 billion in crude oil imports annually if the country switches 10 per cent of its diesel usage in the transport sector to liquefied natural gas.
State-owned Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) is willing to dilute a 30-40 per cent stake in its upcoming greenfield refinery in Andhra Pradesh, with Gulf energy major Saudi Aramco and upstream player Oil India Ltd (OIL) likely to join as partners, a senior BPCL executive said.
India's decision to import LPG from the US helps it to diversify sources as it reduces almost full reliance on West Asian countries for supply of the country's primary cooking fuel.
In a first, Indian oil public sector undertakings (PSUs) finalised a one-year contract to import around 2.2 million tonnes (mt) of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) from the US. The LPG import deal comes at a time when negotiations for an India-US bilateral trade agreement (BTA) are gathering steam. Earlier in the month, US President Donald Trump had said Washington and New Delhi were "pretty close" to reaching a fair trade deal.
India offset the decline in exports to traditional destinations by sharply ramping up shipments to Jordan (18,086 per cent), Hong Kong (17,006 per cent), Spain (13,436 per cent), the Philippines (2,235 per cent), and Namibia (1,068 per cent) in H1FY26.
After a three-month slowdown, India's oil imports (already landed) from Russia bounced back in the first 15 days of October to 1.8 million barrels per day.
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