Two LPG carriers from the UAE and one crude oil carrier from Saudi Arabia are headed towards Indian ports to fill the energy supplies gap even as Navy Chief Dinesh Tripathi has cancelled his official trip to Australia and New Zealand due to the Iran-US war and the ensuing shipping crisis in the Persian Gulf, people familiar with the matter said.
Indian-flagged MV Jag Vasant followed by MV Pine Gas, sailing at a distance of five nautical miles apart, left their anchorage at UAE ports at 6 am IST on Monday. (HT_PRINT)
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Indian-flagged MV Jag Vasant followed by MV Pine Gas, sailing at a distance of five nautical miles apart, left their anchorage at UAE ports at 6 am IST on Monday for India after Iran gave clearance for the two LPG vessels to cross the highly sensitive strait.
The vessels carrying 92,612.59 MT of LPG transited the Strait of Hormuz on Monday evening, the shipping ministry said.
The vessels have 33 and 27 Indian seafarers on board, respectively. The Jag Vasant is likely to reach Kandla port on March 26 and Pine Gas is scheduled to reach New Mangalore on March 28, according to the shipping ministry.
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In the Gulf of Oman, the LPG ships will be provided escort by Indian Navy warships for 24 hours before they begin their journey towards Indian ports on the west coast.
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In the Gulf of Oman, the LPG ships will be provided escort by Indian Navy warships for 24 hours before they begin their journey towards Indian ports on the west coast.
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Additionally, a crude oil carrier, MT Kallista, is loading at the Saudi Arabian port of Yanbu and will depart Tuesday for Paradip port in India via Jeddah port, these people said. The Panama-flagged ship will also be provided escort by Indian Navy ships through the Gulf of Aden in coordination with the petroleum ministry.
Due to constant missile and drone firing across the Persian Gulf, the Indian crews on board tankers in the war zone are highly stressed but the Indian Navy and the ship owners are constantly talking to them to boost their morale.
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It is due to the on-going crisis and its impact on Indian energy security that Navy Chief Admiral Dinesh Tripathi cancelled his bilateral visit to Australia and New Zealand from March 19-23.
While India has not paid any money to Iran for allowing the transit of the Indian LPG tankers, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Council (IRGC) is not allowing any Indian warship to escort Indian flagged vessels. The Iranian embassy in India on Monday denied reports that Tehran is seeking a payment of $2 million for each vessel that passes through the Hormuz Straits.
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The Narendra Modi government has asked the Indian Navy to deploy its Kolkata class destroyers around Gulf of Oman and Gulf of Aden to ensure safety of Indian flagged ships. Captains of all Indian flagged ships are being constantly contacted to tell them that Indian help is round the corner.
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.
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Home/India News/2 LPG ships from UAE, 1 oil tanker from Saudi headed for India to fill supply gap
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