Hindustan Petroleum Corp can buy Middle East crude again. Finding a ship to lift it from inside the Persian Gulf is the harder part2.
Chairman Vikas Kaushal said in an interview in Abu Dhabi that vessel supply, not crude supply, is now the constraint. "The main challenge has been hiring of ships," BusinessLine reported him saying on November 62. "Even if we have crude available for purchase from the Persian Gulf, sometimes finding vessels for the available loading dates is a challenge"2.
Some owners also pull out after fixing. "Sometimes the ship is contracted and then at the last minute the shipowner says I can't do it," he said2. Hellenic Shipping News, citing BusinessWorld, carried the same remarks1.
The volumes show the gap. HPCL bought about 240,000 barrels a day (b/d) of Middle East crude in 2025, Kpler data show. That fell to 57,000 b/d in April 2026, when the war all but shut the strait, and recovered to 256,000 b/d on average in October1, 2.
Barrels came back before ships did
Exports moved first. Crude loadings from terminals west of Hormuz ran at about 11 million b/d in October. That compares with 1.56 million b/d in May and 14.5 million b/d before the war, according to Vortexa figures cited by Windward Maritime3. Gulf producers assembled a fleet of nearly 230 tankers to move it, about 80% of them very large crude carriers (VLCCs)3. That fleet tied up an estimated 15% to 20% of the global VLCC fleet at any one time3.
The workaround explains the refiner's problem. Producers run short shuttle voyages from Gulf terminals to ship-to-ship transfer areas off the UAE and Oman, where cargoes move onto tankers that will not enter the strait3, 5. Sparta analyst Aaron Kildow put the price signal on it. Loading inside Hormuz costs $20 to $30 a barrel more than at the lightering zone just south of Fujairah, a spread that pays owners for the extra risk6.
"Terminals and pipelines can be repaired relatively quickly but replacing oil tankers is quite a bit more difficult and requires a longer lead time," Kildow said6.
Crude supply therefore recovered faster than the pool of owners willing to make the run. For a refiner that traditionally lifted most of its Gulf crude inside the waterway, cargoes can be bought and still left waiting1, 2.
Rates fell, ships did not appear
Baltic Exchange assessments fell last week. The TD3C route, 270,000 tonnes from the Middle East Gulf to China, dropped almost 47 points to WS1220.63, a round-trip equivalent of $1,303,616 a day7. TD34, from the Gulf of Oman to China, fell almost 86 points to WS586.437. Worldscale expresses freight as a percentage of a published flat rate for each route8.
Cheaper rates have not solved availability. Broker Affinity reported a small but noticeable rise in activity in an area with a tight prompt tonnage list east of Suez, meaning few ships open for nearby dates9.
Indian Oil's own book shows what long-term cover is worth. Its three time-chartered crude carriers cost about $2 to $2.50 a barrel4, 10. Spot rates run as high as $8 to $10 a barrel, finance director Anuj Jain said on the company's September-quarter earnings call4. LPG freight that normally runs about $40 a tonne was quoted at $160 to $180 a tonne spot4.
Freight is also reshaping which crude a refiner can afford. Platts assessed Black Sea to west coast India at $28 million lumpsum on October 30, against a year-to-date average of $14.5 million11.
The contract decides who carries it
HPCL has increasingly shifted to the spot market and is taking delivery directly at its refineries, Kaushal said last month1. The delivered route does remove part of the problem. Gulf producers shuttle exports out themselves and hand cargoes to buyers just outside the strait, so a refiner can take regional supply without chartering the whole voyage1. The trade-off is price, and less control over which ship sails on which date.
Indian Oil is taking the other route. Its board approved buying a few crude and LPG carriers, with tenders issued several months ago, and it is weighing ownership and Indian shipbuilding alongside better use of charters4, 10. Chairman A S Sahney told an event in Goa on October 27 that India had neglected shipping: "Today we are getting crude at discount but freight is eating that up. Freight is a killing factor"12.
Competition for the willing ships is regional. India's crude imports hit a record 5.54 million b/d in October, up 9% from September and a year earlier11. Analysts told Platts the surge may partly reflect delayed cargoes arriving together11. Refiners in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand say double-digit premiums for US crude now reflect the value of on-time delivery13.
What to watch
Attacks remain the first variable. At least two tankers were attacked in the strait over the weekend, including a product tanker that caught fire off Khasab in Oman14. UKMTO said Iranian Revolutionary Guard activity persisted, including drone overflights and surveillance of merchant shipping14. Traffic is running at single to low-double-digit transits a day, below normal14. Iran's attacks on ships reached a wartime high of almost 30 in October, Bloomberg reported5.
Tonnage is the second. Gulf producers are absorbing ships into their own fleets, and Kildow's point is that vessels take longer to replace than terminals3, 6. Sparta lists renewed conflict as the worst case for supply and a peace deal including Iran and the Houthi forces as the best6. Those are scenarios, not forecasts of timing.