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Indian Oil skips US crude, buys Nigerian, Mideast oil via tender, say sources

Indian Oil Corp, a top refiner in India, has opted to buy West African oil and Middle Eastern grade instead of buying U.S. crude. This was revealed by trade sources on Friday.

People said that the state refiner bought from TotalEnergy a million barrels from each Nigerian oil grade Agbami or Usan, and Shell a million barrels from Abu Dhabi's Das crude.

Das oil was purchased on a free-onboard basis, and Nigerian oil on a delivery basis. Both are due to arrive in Indian ports by the end of October or early November.

IOC purchased 5 million barrels U.S. West Texas Intermediate in its previous auction last week.

Indian refiners took advantage of an arbitrage window that was favorable and increased their purchases of U.S. crude oil through tenders.

The U.S. purchases of oil also helped reduce India's huge trade surplus with the U.S.

The U.S. crude landed costs were high in comparison to other grades despite the Brent-WTI differential for the first month. Being about $4 per barrel. Reporting by Nidhhi Verma from New Delhi, and Siyi LIu from Singapore. Editing by Harikrishnan Nair

(source: Reuters)