NEW DELHI: The United Arab Emirates has agreed to supply India with liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to make up for a shortfall in LPG import from Saudi Arabia. While Saudi officials had assured India that there will be no interruption in crude oil supplies, government sources say it has already deferred two LPG shipments.
Drone attacks on Saudi Arabia’s largest crude processing facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais this month had put nearly half of its oil and gas capacity out of operation, around 5.7 million barrels per day.
Indian oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan took to Twitter to thank UAE and its oil unit ADNOC for the LPG.
According to officials, Pradhan had received an assurance from his Saudi counterpart that crude oil supply would not be interrupted. “But, they have alerted us to some deferment in the committed LPG supplies,” an official said.
India imports close to 2 million tonnes of crude oil from Saudi every month and about 2 lakh tonnes of LPG. “Around 1.3 million tonnes of crude oil slated for September have been realised already and they have assured there will be no problem in delivering the rest,” an official said.
Saudi has assured global oil customers that repairs at the drone-hit facilities will be complete by the end of November and more than 90 per cent of the 5.7 mbpd of affected output will be restored by September end.