5 India-bound LPG ships stay anchored near Hormuz Strait

What Happened

Five large LPG tankers carrying a combined cargo of over 1.7 lakh tonnes (approximately 230,000 metric tonnes) of liquefied petroleum gas remained anchored near the Strait of Hormuz, waiting for a safe passage window to transit toward Indian ports.
The ships are reported to have bunched together as a convoy strategy — grouping vessels close to each other before attempting the transit through the volatile strait.
Some LPG tankers have already transited successfully: the Jag Vasant tanker, carrying approximately 47,600 metric tonnes of LPG, docked at Vadinar port in Gujarat; two other Indian-flagged LPG carriers earlier transited carrying roughly 92,600 tonnes.
India's Ministry of Shipping confirmed that 22 Indian-flagged vessels in total remain on the western side of the strait, with collective cargoes of approximately 1.67 million tonnes of crude oil, 3.2 lakh tonnes of LPG, and nearly 2 lakh tonnes of LNG.
The Indian Navy has been providing navigational guidance and escort coordination for select India-flagged vessels transiting through the IRGC-controlled corridor along Iranian territorial waters.

Static Topic Bridges

LPG in India's Energy Mix and Import Dependency

Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) is a mixture of propane and butane, stored under pressure as a liquid. In India, LPG is the primary domestic cooking fuel for over 320 million households following the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) expansion launched in 2016, which brought LPG access to approximately 10 crore Below Poverty Line (BPL) households. India's LPG consumption has grown to approximately 30 million tonnes per year, with domestic production covering only a fraction of this demand.

India imports approximately 60–65% of its LPG demand, with over 90% of those imports historically sourced from the Gulf (Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia).
India's LPG storage capacity stands at approximately 1.2 million tonnes — enough for barely two weeks of national demand.
In February 2026, India signed contracts to import approximately 2.2 million tonnes per annum of LPG from the United States — the first structured deal of this kind — as part of supply diversification.
The "Pahal" scheme (2014) linked LPG subsidies directly to Aadhaar-based direct benefit transfer (DBT), eliminating ghost beneficiaries and saving an estimated ₹14,000 crore annually.
LPG supply disruption affects both household energy security and the informal economy, particularly street food vendors and small eateries.

Connection to this news: The anchored LPG tankers directly represent India's structural dependence on a single maritime corridor for household cooking fuel — a vulnerability that the Hormuz crisis has converted from an abstract risk to an immediate supply threat.

Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR) and Energy Buffer Management

A Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is a stockpile of crude oil or petroleum products maintained by a government to mitigate supply disruptions. India's SPR programme was established by the Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Limited (ISPRL), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Oil Industry Development Board (OIDB) under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.

India's SPR infrastructure: three underground rock cavern facilities at Visakhapatnam (1.33 MMT), Mangaluru (1.5 MMT), and Padur (2.5 MMT) — total capacity of 5.33 million metric tonnes.
As of March 2026, SPR stock stands at approximately 3.372 MMT (~64% of capacity), providing roughly 9.5 days of crude oil buffer at full capacity; actual effective cover has dwindled to approximately 6 days given current fill levels.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) recommends 90 days of petroleum reserves; India's combined strategic + commercial stocks total approximately 74 days.
The government approved two new SPR sites — Chandikhol (Odisha) and expanded Padur (Karnataka) — with combined additional capacity of 6.5 MMT; land acquisition is at advanced stage.
Unlike the US SPR (drawdown authority vested in the President), India's ISPRL draws are coordinated through the Ministry of Petroleum.

Connection to this news: The stranded LPG tankers expose India's structural buffer inadequacy for LPG specifically — a product not covered under SPR (which stores only crude oil) — making supply disruptions translate almost immediately into retail shortages.

India's Maritime Shipping Infrastructure and the Cabotage Framework

India's shipping sector is governed by the Merchant Shipping Act, 1958, and administered by the Directorate General of Shipping (DGS) under the Ministry of Ports, Shipping, and Waterways. The Indian shipping fleet is relatively small relative to India's trade volumes, making the country heavily reliant on foreign-flagged vessels for bulk commodity imports including crude oil, LPG, and LNG.

India's merchant fleet ranks approximately 16th globally by deadweight tonnage — far below China, Japan, Greece, and Norway.
Cabotage laws (historically under the Merchant Shipping Act) required coastal trade to be conducted by Indian-flagged vessels; liberalisation in 2018 partially opened coastal trade to foreign vessels.
The Maritime India Vision 2030, released in 2020, targets doubling India's share of global shipping tonnage and developing India as a global maritime hub.
India's major LPG receiving terminals are located at Kandla (Gujarat), Mangalore (Karnataka), and Nhava Sheva (Maharashtra).
Vadinar port (Gujarat) — owned by Nayara Energy — is a deep-draft port capable of receiving VLCCs and LPG carriers; it is the principal terminal for the Jag Vasant's delivery.

Connection to this news: The concentration of stranded Indian-flagged and India-chartered vessels highlights the structural thinness of India's merchant fleet and its dependence on Gulf shipping lanes — vulnerabilities that the Maritime India Vision 2030 aims to address but which remain acute.

The use of naval escorts for commercial vessels in contested maritime zones is a well-established practice under international law, most notably demonstrated during the 1987–88 "Tanker War" phase of the Iran-Iraq War, when the US Navy conducted Operation Earnest Will to escort Kuwaiti oil tankers reflagged as American vessels through the Persian Gulf. India's current role in guiding Indian-flagged vessels through the IRGC-controlled corridor echoes this precedent.

Operation Earnest Will (1987–88): the US Navy escorted 11 Kuwaiti tankers reflagged under the US flag; an IRGC mine struck the USS Bridgeton in the first convoy, highlighting escort limitations against asymmetric threats.
India's INS deployment in the Arabian Sea since late 2023 has built operational familiarity with commercial vessel escort and anti-piracy operations.
The IRGC's current policy of allowing vessels from India, China, and select neutral nations through its corridor while blocking others creates a precedent for selective state-controlled passage — legally distinct from the UNCLOS transit passage right.
Ships transiting in convoy benefit from mutual visual reference and radio coordination but remain individually vulnerable to mines, which cannot be detected without specialised mine-countermeasure vessels.

Connection to this news: The Indian Navy's guidance role for the anchored LPG tankers reflects both India's operational naval capacity and the gap between that capacity and the mine-countermeasure and electronic warfare capabilities that a full escort operation in the current threat environment would require.

Key Facts & Data

5 large LPG tankers anchored near Hormuz: combined cargo exceeding 230,000 metric tonnes (approximately 1.7 lakh tonnes as reported)
22 total Indian-flagged vessels on western side of strait as of late March 2026
Total stranded Indian cargo: ~1.67 million tonnes crude, 3.2 lakh tonnes LPG, ~2 lakh tonnes LNG
Jag Vasant successfully docked at Vadinar, Gujarat: 47,600 metric tonnes of LPG delivered
Two earlier LPG carriers transited successfully: ~92,600 tonnes LPG delivered
India's LPG storage capacity: ~1.2 million tonnes (~2 weeks of national demand)
India's SPR: 5.33 MMT capacity; ~9.5 days crude buffer at full capacity; ~6 days at current fill levels
Government fuel duty cut: ₹10/litre on petrol and diesel (March 27, 2026) to offset price pressures
India's LPG import dependence from Gulf: historically over 90% of total imports