Indian flagged tanker Jag Ladki carrying crude oil imported from UAE reached Mundra port in Gujarat on Wednesday.

New Delhi: Amid the oil shortage, a tanker loaded with Russian crude, which is likely to land at New Mangalore port on Saturday, is generating a lot of interest, according to data from ship tracking website Marine Traffic.The ship, Aqua Titan, was originally headed for the Chinese port of Rizhao but diverted to India, news agency Bloomberg reported.It is unclear what caused the change, although the government said it was “unaware of such developments”.The Russian ship loaded cargo from the Baltic Sea port in late January, according to ship-tracking data.At least seven tankers carrying Russian oil have changed their destination while traveling from China to India, Bloomberg said, citing Vortexa data.Separately, the Suezmax Zouzou N is signaling India’s coin as its next destination with an estimated arrival date of March 25, ship-tracking data shows. According to Kpler, the tanker is carrying Kazakh CPC blend crude. It sailed from Novorossiysk on Russia’s Black Sea to Rzhava waters, before turning around in early March to head for India.The government has asked oil companies to buy and stockpile crude in view of the massive supply disruption caused by the blockage in the Strait of Hormuz.While India never stopped buying Russian oil, despite US claims, refiners led by Reliance Industries – the biggest beneficiary of subsidized oil – had gone slow on Rosneft and Lukoil following US sanctions. But with the US lifting the ban on high seas purchases, every country is now buying oil as per its requirement, trying to fill the gap created by the shortage of West Asian crude.India’s purchases of Russian crude rose by nearly 50% in March as refiners turned to alternative sources to overcome supply disruptions in the Persian Gulf.Special Secretary Shipping Rajesh Kumar Sinha said that of the 22 ships stranded on the western side of the Strait of Hormuz, 11 ships were carrying about 2 lakh tonnes of LNG, 16.7 lakh tonnes of crude oil and 3.2 lakh tonnes of LPG.