Indian state refiners pause Russian oil purchases, say sources
India, the world's third-largest oil importer, is the biggest buyer of seaborne Russian crude, a vital revenue earner for Russia as it wages war in Ukraine for a fourth year.
The country's state refiners — Indian Oil Corp, Hindustan Petroleum Corp, Bharat Petroleum Corp and Mangalore Refinery Petrochemical Ltd — have not sought Russian crude in the past week or so, four sources familiar with the refiners' purchase plans told Reuters.
IOC, BPCL, HPCL, MRPL and the federal oil ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.
The four refiners regularly buy Russian oil on a delivered basis and have turned to spot markets for replacement supply — mostly Middle Eastern grades such as Abu Dhabi's Murban crude and West African oil, sources said.
Private refiners Reliance Industries and Nayara Energy, majority owned by Russian entities including oil major Rosneft, have annual deals with Moscow and are the biggest Russian oil buyers in India.
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Eyewitness News
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Ghana defence, environment ministers killed in helicopter crash
ACCRA - Ghana's defence and environment ministers were killed in a helicopter crash Wednesday, the presidency said, hours after the armed forces reported a chopper carrying three crew and five passengers dropped off the radar. Television station Joy News broadcast cell phone footage from the crash scene showing smouldering wreckage amid a heavily forested area earlier in the day, before it was revealed that ministers Edward Omane Boamah and Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed were among the dead. Boamah became President John Mahama's defence minister earlier this year shortly after Mahama's swearing-in in January. Muhammed was serving as the minister of environment, science and technology. Everyone onboard was killed in the accident, authorities said, while Ghanaian media reported that the helicopter was on its way to an event on illegal mining -- a major environmental issue in the west African country. "The president and government extend our condolences and sympathies to the families of our comrades and the servicemen who died in service to the country," said Mahama's chief of staff Julius Debrah. Boamah was leading Ghana's defence ministry at a time when jihadist activity across its northern border in Burkina Faso has become increasingly restive. While Ghana has so far avoided a jihadist spillover from the Sahel -- unlike neighbours Togo and Benin -- observers have warned of increased arms trafficking and of militants from Burkina Faso crossing the porous border to use Ghana as a rear base. A medical doctor by training, Boamah's career in government included stints as communications minister during Mahama's previous 2012-2017 tenure. Before that, he was the deputy minister for environment. Mahama was "down, down emotionally", Haruna Iddrisu, Ghana's education minister, told reporters outside the presidency after news broke of the crash. ILLEGAL MINING The Ghanaian Armed Forces had reported earlier Wednesday that an air force helicopter had fallen off radar after taking off from Accra just after 9:00 am local time (0900 GMT). It had been headed towards the town of Obuasi, northwest of the capital. The statement had said that three crew and five passengers were aboard, without specifying at the time that the ministers were among them. Alhaji Muniru Mohammed, Ghana's deputy national security coordinator and former agriculture minister, was among the dead, along with Samuel Sarpong, vice chairman of Mahama's National Democratic Congress party. Muhammed, the environment minister, was at the helm as the country battles a scourge of illegal, informal gold mining that has ravaged farmlands and contaminated water. "Galamsey", as the practice is locally known, has been threatening cocoa production in particular and became a major issue in the election that saw Mahama elected last year. The establishment earlier this year of the Ghana Gold Board and the banning of foreigners from the local gold trade were seen as the first concrete signs of a crackdown on the practice by the new administration. As Ghana has pursued increased diplomacy with Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger -- all ruled by juntas who have broken with the ECOWAS west African regional bloc -- Boamah led a delegation to Ouagadougou in May. He had been set to release a book titled "A Peaceful Man in an African Democracy", about former president John Atta Mills, who died in 2012. All flags were to be flown at half-mast, Debrah said, while the presidency said Mahama had cancelled his official activities for the day.
eNCA
5 hours ago
- eNCA
Trump hikes India levy as tariff deadline approaches
WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered steeper tariffs on Indian goods over New Delhi's continued purchase of Russian oil, opening a new front in his trade wars just hours before another wave of duties takes effect. Trump's additional 25-percent tariff on Indian goods, set to come into place in three weeks, stacks atop a separate 25-percent duty entering into force Thursday. This takes the level to 50 percent for many products. Trump's order also threatens potential penalties on other countries for "directly or indirectly importing Russian Federation oil," a key source of revenue for Moscow's war in Ukraine. But exemptions remain for goods targeted under sector-specific duties such as steel and aluminum, and categories that could be hit later, like pharmaceuticals and semiconductors. Smartphones are also among this list of exempted products for now, notably shielding Apple from a major hit as the US tech titan shifts production from China to India. India's foreign ministry condemned Trump's tariff announcement Wednesday, calling the move "unfair, unjustified and unreasonable." The ministry had previously said that India began importing from Russia as traditional supplies were diverted to Europe after the outbreak of the conflict. It noted that Washington at that time had "actively encouraged such imports by India for strengthening global energy market stability." But Trump recently ramped up pressure on India over its purchases of Russian oil, threatening new tariffs as part of a campaign to force Moscow into ending its devastating invasion of Ukraine. India's national security adviser was in Moscow on Wednesday, media in New Delhi reported, coinciding with a visit by US envoy Steve Witkoff. The latest 25-percent additional tariff is notably lower than a 100-percent level Trump floated last month when he told Russia to end its war in Ukraine within 50 days or face massive new economic sanctions. The Republican said at the time that these would be "secondary tariffs" targeting Russia's remaining trade partners, seeking to impede Moscow's ability to survive already sweeping Western sanctions. - Tariff turmoil - Trump's latest salvo targeting India came after he separately took aim at Brazil over the trial of his right-wing ally, former president Jair Bolsonaro -- who is accused of planning a coup. On Wednesday, US tariffs on various Brazilian goods surged from 10 percent to 50 percent, although broad exemptions including for orange juice and civil aircraft are expected to soften the blow. Come Thursday, a new wave of tariffs on imports from dozens of other economies, ranging from the European Union to Taiwan, is set to kick in. These updated "reciprocal" tariffs, meant to address trade practices Washington deems unfair, go as high as 41 percent for countries like Syria. Other major US trading partners face varying increases from a current 10-percent level, starting at 15 percent for economies like the EU, Japan and South Korea. Countries not targeted by these "reciprocal" tariff hikes continue facing a 10-percent US levy Trump imposed in April. Trump's plans have sparked a rush to avert the steeper duties, with Switzerland's President Karin Keller-Sutter hurrying to Washington this week ahead of the Thursday deadline. Though she secured a meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, it was unclear if she would meet Trump or any top economic officials. Her Alpine country faces a 39-percent duty on many of its exports, and while its key pharmaceutical sector has been spared for now, Trump has said a potential separate tariff could eventually rise to 250 percent. Some of Trump's sweeping tariffs face legal challenges over his use of emergency economic powers, with the cases likely to ultimately reach the Supreme Court. By Beiyi Seow
Daily Maverick
5 hours ago
- Daily Maverick
Loaded for Bear: As Anthropocene descends into the ‘Madocene' a ‘Madness Index' is in order
I propose that a Madness Index could supplement the Uncertainty Index. The global body politic is going right off its rocker, howling at the moon like some demented wolf on an acid trip. We are living in an age of 'great uncertainty', we are often told, and there is an entire conference industry now devoted to that subject. There are even indices to track uncertainty, with an excellent website devoted to that matter. Its main show is the Economic Policy Index (EPU), but there are other indices on the site, including the Trade Policy Uncertainty Index, the Monetary Policy Index and the Climate Policy Uncertainty Index. One unifying theme here is 'policy uncertainty'. But there is a root cause to all this uncertainty, and it is hiding in plain sight. It can be summed up in one word: madness. And I mean of the stark, raving, frothing-at-the-mouth, bug-eyed kind. The global body politic is going right off its rocker, howling at the moon like some demented wolf on an acid trip. Scientists speak of the current geological phase of the Earth's history as the Anthropocene, which speaks bluntly to humanity's impact on the environment. The Anthropocene can also be broken down into eras, and right now it is descending into the 'Madocene'. Just look at the utter insanity that is Trump 2.0. US Republicans are celebrating a massive tax hike on the middle class — which is what US President Donald Trump's tariffs are — and pretending they are something else against all evidence and the most basic grasp of economics or history. Denial of reality It's the denial of reality that is so troubling. I'm no shrink, but when you start denying what you see with your own eyes, I take it as a clinical sign of insanity. Trump and his 'policies' and politics are the most obvious manifestation of this insanity. The 6 January 2021 coup attempt at the US Capitol was a 'peaceful protest' by patriots attempting to nip a stolen election in the bud. Never mind that 174 police officers were injured, five people died as a result, and that there is no evidence of a rigged election. There's nothing to see here folks, and so we have Trump 2.0 — tariffs imposed on islands only inhabited by penguins, tariffs raised and lowered, tariffs today but not tomorrow — an endless cycle of madness and mayhem amid threats to annex Canada and Greenland. Part of Trump's base — the QAnon crowd — for years hyped the conspiracy theory that prominent Democrats were involved in a cabal of Satanic cannibalistic paedophiles. The files around notorious sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein — who reportedly killed himself in prison in 2019 — were a red rag for this lot. And suddenly there is nothing to see there! Even Trump's gullible base is not buying that, and so we now have a situation where the president of the US is losing political capital with one of his key crazy constituencies against the background of mounting suspicions — Trump and Epstein were pals — that he is in those files in a disturbing kind of way. The attempts to distract from all of this have included allegations that former US president Barack Obama committed treason because of his murky role in the 'Russiagate hoax' — which, as David Graham at The Atlantic notes, is not a hoax. We are in an age in which the US president — who spouts crazy stuff all the time — is trying to hide the spoor of his relationship with a paedophile who would make the Vatican blush by accusing a former president of treason — a crime that Trump himself demonstrably committed on 6 January 2021. Trump last week fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, claiming that the latest jobs data report was 'rigged' to make him look bad. Trump wants to manipulate the numbers and will probably appoint a minion to do so, which will undermine the credibility of crucial US data that moves global markets. The US president is also gunning for Federal Reserve Chairperson Jerome Powell because he has been reluctant to lower interest rates, in part because of the inflationary impact of Trump's tariffs. And he has said that nominees for the 12-member Federal Open Market Committee that sets US monetary policy will be litmus tested — if they won't lower rates, they won't get the job. For markets, this assault on central bank independence and statistical agencies in the world's most important economy is baie mal. We've also seen the denial of science on the vaccine and climate change fronts even as the fossil fuels uncorked by the Anthropocene continue to burn our planet. To sum up, Trump 2.0 is madness on steroids. And the zaniness does not end there. Russian President Vladimir Putin's three-day war in Ukraine is well into its third year with no end in sight, and no goal beyond paranoid delusions about Nato's borders — as if Latvia was a threat to Russia. North Korea remains a nuclear-armed madhouse, and the people of Gaza face genocide and starvation. I'm sure Trump still has the hope he floated a few months ago of turning the strip into a beachfront stripper zone. Can't let a little genocide and starvation get in the way of the new Ibiza! In Afghanistan, the Taliban are back baby, and those dudes are pretty bonkers. Meanwhile, here in the lovable loony bin called South Africa, the daily headlines are a reminder of our plunge off the deep end under a political mutant called the Government of National Unity. Just take Pieter-Louis Myburgh's takedown of the Independent Development Trust CEO and spokesperson after they offered him R60,000 in cash to quash a probe. That is, among other things, downright crazy. There are pockets of political sanity out there. Mark Carney, the prime minister of my native Canada, is a wooden central banker who speaks in complete sentences. How boringly sane! But there is lunacy galore out there. So I propose that a Madness Index could supplement the Uncertainty Index. I'm open to suggestions on this front. But I think it should perhaps be linked to, say, the price of gold, which has reached insane levels as it is an asset that thrives on madness. It could go something along these lines — a graph that since about 2016 has soared in an increasingly vertical fashion from 'Oupa had too much brandy' to 'wow, that's kind of nuts' to 'straight-jacket' levels and then 'batshit crazy'. Where it goes beyond there is worth pondering. Maybe the 'bat-excrement' phase could be a wide range that might peak in 30 to 50 years time. Or maybe the bat-excrement hitting the AI-powered fan could mark the next stage of this collective acid trip. From there, I guess we're off to Mars with Elon Musk. DM Letters will be edited.
