Strait of Hormuz crisis: HPCL faces oil tanker booking challenges amid rising risks

Indian oil refiner Hindustan Petroleum Corp. said it faces challenges booking tankers to transit the Strait of Hormuz to pick up cargoes, even as an increasing number of vessels make the crossing and crude supply from the region rises.

Availability of freighters and late decisions to pull out from voyages are hindering HPCL’s ability to ship oil from inside the Persian Gulf, Chairman Vikas Kaushal said in an interview in Abu Dhabi this week. The company’s success in transits through Hormuz has been varied, though supplies can still be picked up from outside the chokepoint, he said.

“The main challenge has been hiring of ships. Even if we have crude available for purchase from the Persian Gulf, sometimes finding vessels for the available loading dates is a challenge,” Kaushal said. “Sometimes the ship is contracted and then at the last minute the shipowner says I can’t do it.”

Oil flows from the Middle East have surged in recent months, returning to near pre-war levels with an increasing number of vessels crossing Hormuz despite Iran ramping up maritime attack. The higher flows also come amid an unprecedented scarcity of vessels which has sent the cost of hauling barrels around the world soaring. That’s exacerbated in Hormuz, where a relatively narrow pool of shipowners are willing to cross the waterway.

Gulf producers have been resorting to shuttling their exports out themselves and transferring the cargo to customers just outside the waterway.

HPCL bought about 240,000 barrels a day of Middle East oil in 2025, according to data provider Kpler. That slumped to 57,000 a day in April as the war all but shut Hormuz, but rose to 256,000 barrels a day on average last month with more supplies from the region becoming available, according to the data.

Typically, the Mumbai-based refiner would collect most of these purchase from inside the Gulf, but has increasingly shifted to the spot market in recent times, and is taking deliveries directly at its plants, Kaushal said last month.