India's HPCL still struggles to hire Hormuz tankers as Gulf flows recover

Hindustan Petroleum Corp. faces challenges booking tankers to transit the Strait of Hormuz and load crude inside the Persian Gulf, Chairman Vikas Kaushal said in an Abu Dhabi interview reported by Bloomberg on Nov. 6, even as Middle East oil flows have returned toward near prewar levels and more vessels are crossing the waterway.

Availability of freighters and last-minute pullouts from contracted voyages are hindering HPCL's ability to ship oil from inside the Gulf, Kaushal said. The Mumbai-based state refiner's success getting through Hormuz has been varied, he said; supplies can still be picked up outside the chokepoint. The reporting describes difficulty and unreliable hiring - not a confirmed cutoff of all Gulf crude to HPCL.

"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 told Bloomberg. "Sometimes the ship is contracted and then at the last minute the shipowner says I can't do it."

Flow recovery - and what the numbers show

Bloomberg reported that oil flows from the Middle East have surged in recent months, returning to near prewar levels, with more vessels crossing Hormuz even as Iran has stepped up maritime attacks. That regional throughput claim is attributed to Bloomberg reporting; regional strait transit volumes are not independently remeasured here.

What is separately quantified for HPCL itself, via Kpler data cited by Bloomberg:

• About 240,000 barrels a day of Middle East oil purchases in 2025
• A slump to 57,000 barrels a day in April, when the war all but shut Hormuz
• A rebound to 256,000 barrels a day on average last month, as more regional supply became available

Gulf producers have been shuttling exports out themselves and transferring cargo to customers just outside the waterway, Bloomberg reported.

How HPCL is adapting

Before the war, HPCL typically collected most of these purchases from inside the Gulf. It has increasingly shifted to the spot market and is taking deliveries directly at its plants, Kaushal said last month (Bloomberg). OilPrice, rewriting the same Bloomberg interview, added that vessel scarcity, war premiums and owners unwilling to risk transits drove that pivot - freight-market detail on the same reporting chain, not a second independent interview.

OilPrice also reported that ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman are tying up very large crude carriers for weeks, tightening VLCC supply and pushing demand and daily rates higher for Aframax and Suezmax vessels. Those logistics claims are credited to OilPrice alone here.

Iran's reported India exemption - separate context

Separately, Al Jazeera reported Nov. 6 that Iranian lawmaker Amir Hayat Moqaddam, deputy chairman of parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, told the Iranian Students' News Agency that ships from India, China, Iraq and Qatar may pass Hormuz without Iran's restrictions, and that "the Americans do not intercept them either." Tehran, per that account, seeks medicines from India, political backing from China, Qatar's mediation role, and transit fees from Indian and Chinese vessels.

Analysts quoted by Al Jazeera said the operational rules - flag versus owner versus cargo, and whether Washington accepts voyages tied to Iranian ports - remain unclear. An exemption announcement does not erase HPCL's reported tanker-hiring friction: barrels can move while shipowners still refuse or cancel Gulf loadings. Al Jazeera, citing Kpler analyst Muyu Xu, also put October Gulf crude through Hormuz at 10.23 million barrels a day, with about 42% bound for China and 13% for India - theatre throughput, not a substitute for Bloomberg's HPCL purchase series.

What is settled - and what is not

• Settled for news purposes: Named HPCL chairman on the record to Bloomberg that hiring ships for Gulf loadings remains the main challenge, with scarce vessels and last-minute owner refusals; Kpler-via-Bloomberg purchase volumes for HPCL show a sharp April drop and an October rebound above the 2025 average.
• Attributed, not independently remeasured here: Regional Middle East oil flows back to "near prewar levels" (Bloomberg); STS congestion and Aframax/Suezmax rate surge (OilPrice); Iranian four-country Hormuz exemption claim (Al Jazeera / ISNA).
• Not established: Absolute inability to hire any Hormuz tanker; HPCL refinery run cuts or cargo shortfalls in barrels; dollar freight cost per HPCL cargo; that Iran's reported exemption has made Hormuz bookings reliable for Indian state buyers.

Open questions

• Do HPCL's October purchase volumes hold as remaining Gulf loadings clear, and what share still loads inside Hormuz versus outside-the-strait transfers?
• Will more shipowners accept contracted Hormuz voyages if war-risk premiums ease, or does the narrow willing pool persist?
• Does Washington treat India-linked vessels the way Tehran describes, and does that change owner willingness to load inside the Gulf?

Sources: Bloomberg (Alex Longley and Shariq Khan), Nov. 6, 2026 - full text via Business Standard and The Hindu BusinessLine Bloomberg syndications (bloomberg.com paywalled); Kpler figures as cited by Bloomberg; OilPrice (Tsvetana Paraskova), Nov. 6 - Bloomberg interview chain for HPCL quotes, OilPrice-only for STS/VLCC-Aframax freight expansion; Al Jazeera (Nils Adler), Nov. 6 - Iranian exemption statement via ISNA and Kpler October throughput.