Oman was India’s single biggest LNG supplier in September, toppling the United States that held the top spot for months after the Iran war began, as European buyers are snapping up American cargoes and intensifying the competition of spot U.S. supply with Asia.
The arbitrage economics have worked in Europe’s favor in recent weeks in attracting U.S. LNG cargoes, and European buyers gobbled up additional American supply amid historically low levels in gas storage sites across the EU ahead of the winter.
As a result, India boosted imports of liquefied natural gas from other sources, and Oman became the biggest supplier.
India’s imports from Oman jumped by 11.6% to 0.59 million tons last month compared to August, while imports from the United States crashed by 60.7% from the previous month, to 0.34 million tons, per tanker-tracking data by Kpler cited by The Indian Express.
So while Oman was the top supplier to India, Nigeria came in second with 0.35 million tons, despite a 35% decline in imports month over month. The U.S. was third, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was fourth, with shipments up 27.3% from August to reach 0.31 million tons in September, according to the data.
Among the biggest LNG customers in South Asia, India has fared better than Pakistan and Bangladesh since the Iran war broke out, Wood Mackenzie’s latest analysis showed this week.
“India fared relatively better by deploying a tiered demand-management strategy that kept city gas distribution unaffected while cutting supply to the fertiliser, refinery, and industrial sectors in March and April,” analysts at the energy consultancy wrote.
Despite a jump in India’s tender award prices from $16.8–18.8 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) between March and June 2026 to as much as $26.4/ MMBtu by September, demand remained robust throughout, WoodMac said.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
