By Nidhi Verma and Mohi Narayan
NEW DELHI (Reuters) -The Indian owners of three vessels chartered to Nayara Energy have asked the Russian-backed firm to end their contracts following recent European Union sanctions on the refiner, six sources familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.
India-based Seven Islands Shipping Ltd and Great Eastern Shipping Co (GESCO) have asked Nayara to release the three clean products tankers, citing concerns over the sanctions, five of the sources said.
The medium-range vessels are the Bourbon and Courage, owned and managed by Seven Islands, and GESCO’s tanker Jag Pooja, sources said.
The sources declined to be named as they were not authorised to speak to the media.
Mumbai-based Nayara, Seven Islands and GESCO did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Lack of access to ships is hampering efforts by the Indian refiner to sell its refined-fuel stocks, which are building up.
The EU sanctions package unveiled on July 18 against Russia and its energy sector have forced Nayara to reduce operations at its 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery due to storage constraints, Reuters reported earlier on Tuesday.
Privately held Nayara, which runs India’s third-biggest refinery at the port of Vadinar in the western state of Gujarat, controls nearly 8% of the country’s total refining capacity of about 5.2 million bpd.
Nayara, majority-owned by Russian entities including oil major Rosneft, exports refined products and also supplies them domestically. Nayara operates more than 6,000 fuel stations.
(Reporting by Nidhi Verma and Mohi Narayan in New Delhi; Additional reporting by Trixie Yap in Singapore; Editing by Florence Tan, Tony Munroe and Bernadette Baum)
