Supertanker delivers oil to sanctioned Nayara Energy refinery: sources

Supertanker Kalliopi was in the process of discharging Iraqi oil for India's Nayara Energy on Wednesday, the first delivery of crude for the refiner since it was sanctioned by the European Union, five sources familiar with the matter said.

More than half of the two million barrels of Basrah volume on board the vessel had been discharged, one of the sources said, with the unloading expected to be completed on Thursday, a second source said.

The supertanker is the first to deliver crude to Nayara's Vadinar refinery in the past 12 days, Kpler ship-tracking data showed.

Nayara did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The EU unveiled new sanctions on Russia and its energy trade that targeted the company on July 18.

Another tanker, Nusa Merdeka, has delayed discharging Russian crude oil at Nayara's port, one of the sources said. The tanker was scheduled to discharge Urals on July 26 at Vadinar but has since been hovering near the anchorage, the person said.

It was not immediately clear why the tanker did not discharge on schedule.

Last week, the oil tanker Omni carrying Russian Urals crude diverted away from Nayara Energy's Vadinar port to discharge its cargo at the port of Mundra in India.

Nayara, which is majority owned by Russian companies, has reduced crude runs at its 400,000 barrels-per-day site to 70-80 per cent, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, product tankers carrying fuel loaded from Nayara Energy's Vadinar site are afloat without discharging cargoes as shippers and traders avoid dealing with it.

(Reporting by Trixie Yap, Nidhi Verma and Mohi Narayan; Editing by Jan Harvey)