Tankers, stranded ships

For a few hours this week, India got the kind of news it had been waiting for. Two Indian-flagged LPG tankers, Green Sanvi and Green Asha, made it through the Strait of Hormuz and turned toward Indian ports, carrying fuel that households, restaurants, and street vendors badly need. But the same reports that tracked those crossings also counted about 16 other Indian vessels still stuck inside the Persian Gulf, unable to move freely through the same narrow passage (businesstoday.in, economictimes.indiatimes.com). That split screen is the story. India is not facing a total stop in cooking-gas supply. It is facing something harder to manage: a trickle. A few ships get through, then many wait, then another ship slips out under special coordination. That is enough to keep the system alive, but not enough to make it feel normal on the ground (reuters.com, bloomberg.com). The Strait of Hormuz is a bottleneck in the most literal sense: a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that connects the Persian Gulf to the open sea. In ordinary times, enormous volumes of oil and gas move through it every day, including about one-fifth of global petroleum consumption and around one-fifth of global LNG trade. When traffic there slows or becomes selective, countries that depend on Gulf energy do not just pay more. They wait longer for ships that are already loaded (eia.gov, iea.org). India is especially exposed because so much of its cooking gas comes from West Asia. Business Today reported that India imports more than 90 percent of its LPG from countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, while Bloomberg reported that most of those shipments normally pass through Hormuz. New Delhi has negotiated passage for some cargoes and pushed refiners to run hard enough that some plants are exceeding 100 percent utilization, but even those emergency measures cover only part of the gap (businesstoday.in, bloomberg.com). The tanker details make the shortage easier to picture. Green Sanvi carried roughly 44,000 tonnes of LPG, about half a day of India’s pre-crisis consumption, according to ship-tracking-based reports. Green Asha followed on April 5 with a smaller cargo of about 15,400 tonnes. Useful deliveries, in other words, but not the kind that erase weeks of delay when many other ships are still waiting their turn (indianexpress.com, thehindu.com). The shortage looks different depending on who is buying. Household LPG prices have been held steady in Delhi at 913 rupees for a 14.2-kilogram cylinder, but commercial cylinders used by restaurants and food stalls jumped to 2,078.50 rupees for 19 kilograms on April 1. The government has also capped commercial LPG allocation at 70 percent of pre-crisis levels while prioritizing homes and essential services, and it has pushed sales of smaller 5-kilogram cylinders as a relief valve (businesstoday.in, economictimes.indiatimes.com, financialexpress.com). That policy choice protects kitchens at home first, but it pushes the pain outward. ABC reported long queues, thinner menus, and a black market in which cylinders can sell for nearly four times the official price. Reuters, in a separate report from Hyderabad, described police seizing 414 cooking-gas cylinders hidden in a graveyard during a crackdown on hoarding. In Delhi and other cities, the shortage has become visible in the smallest possible unit: a meal that is no longer served hot (abc.net.au, abc.net.au, theprint.in). So the safe passage of two tankers does not cancel the crisis. It explains its strange shape. Fuel is arriving, just not in a smooth enough flow to reach everyone who needs it, when they need it. Somewhere off India’s coast, two ships are finally heading in with gas. Somewhere in the Gulf, 16 others are still waiting.