The energy enterprise of Indian industrialist and owner of a metallurgical empire, Lakshmi Mittal, purchased Russian oil delivered on tankers under US sanctions, according to a Financial Times investigation.
An analysis of satellite images, ship trackers, and customs data showed that the Guru Gobind Singh Refinery in the city of Bathinda, co-owned by Mittal, received at least four Russian crude oil shipments worth $280 million from July to September in 2025. Guru Gobind Singh Refinery is the tenth largest refinery in India, with a capacity of 11.3 million tons of oil per year.
The cargo was delivered from the port of Murmansk by shadow fleet tankers under US sanctions. As noted by the publication, all tankers turned off transponders or transmitted false coordinates. It remains unknown who exactly organized the oil deliveries on sanctioned ships. There is also no confirmation that the HPCL-Mittal Energy Limited (HMEL) enterprise, which owns the plant, was aware that the tankers were under sanctions.
Meanwhile, as Bloomberg writes, Russia's shadow fleet tankers heading to India turned around due to US sanctions. For instance, the tanker Furia loaded 730,000 barrels from "Rosneft" in Primorsk on October 20 and set off for its destination port — Sikka in the Indian state of Gujarat, where the refineries of the private company Reliance Industries and the state-owned Bharat Petroleum are located. However, on Tuesday, Furia, passing between Denmark and Germany, turned around, traveled a short distance, sharply reduced speed, and stopped, according to data from Kpler and Vortex ship tracking systems.