The change in momentum began when Pine Gas cleared the waterway through a narrow channel north of Iran’s Larak Island after nearly three weeks of waiting. Reuters reported that the tanker’s 27-member Indian crew spent days watching missiles and drones overhead before agreeing unanimously to the passage, which was then guided by the Indian Navy and followed by an escort of four Indian warships into the Arabian Sea. Carrying 45,000 metric tons of LPG, the vessel was later redirected from Mangalore to Visakhapatnam and Haldia, a sign of how quickly the crisis has forced India to rethink delivery patterns.
Strait of Hormuz traffic is moving again, but the backlog remains
The immediate follow-through came when BW Tyr and BW Elm safely cleared the Strait of Hormuz with about 94,000 metric tons of LPG between them, with expected arrivals in Mumbai and New Mangalore on March 31 and April 1. Even that improvement came with a warning label: four LPG tankers had already made the crossing, three more were still in the western section of the strait, and 18 Indian-flagged vessels carrying 485 Indian seafarers remained in the western Gulf region.
Officially, New Delhi is still signaling control. In a March 29 update, the Press Information Bureau said no LPG distributorship dry-outs had been reported and port operations across India remained normal, while also pointing to higher refinery output and a fast push to expand piped-gas connections for homes, hotels, hostels and canteens.
But the market is already pricing the strain. On April 1, fuel retailers raised commercial LPG prices by 10.4% to 2,078.50 rupees per 19-kg cylinder in New Delhi. Reuters said the increase followed a 44% jump in the Middle Eastern Saudi Contract Price, while 20% to 30% of global LPG supplies remained disrupted in the Strait of Hormuz. State-backed retailers have kept household 14.2-kg cylinder prices unchanged, but only by squeezing industrial users, raising domestic LPG output by 40% to about 50,000 metric tons a day against daily needs of 80,000 tons, and lining up 800,000 tons of cargoes from the United States, Russia, Australia and other suppliers.
Why the Strait of Hormuz remains India’s LPG pressure point
India’s exposure is structural, not incidental. The country consumed 33.15 million metric tons of LPG last year, with imports covering about 60% of demand, and roughly 90% of those imported volumes came from the Middle East. For the world’s second-largest LPG importer, that means even a relatively small cluster of delayed ships can ripple quickly through bottlers, distributors, hotels, factories and city-gas systems, especially when the government decides to shield household kitchens first and shift more of the pain onto commercial users.
The result is that every successful transit now matters twice: once as physical supply, and again as a confidence signal to traders, marketers and consumers. Pine Gas proved cargo can still get through under extreme stress, but its voyage also showed how exceptional each passage has become. This is not routine shipping. It is crisis management at sea.
Earlier warnings now look prescient
What makes the current squeeze especially striking is that Indian refiners had already been trying to reduce this dependence before the latest Hormuz shock. In May 2025, Reuters reported that Bharat Petroleum was exploring swaps that would replace some contracted Middle Eastern cargoes with cheaper U.S. LPG. By October, Reuters reported that state refiners were planning broader 2026 purchases of U.S. LPG while preparing to trim Middle East volumes, a sign that diversification had already moved from theory into procurement strategy.
Those plans now look less like cost optimization and more like strategic insurance. Pine Gas and the tankers behind it show that Indian cargoes can still move through the Strait of Hormuz under conflict conditions, but not with the volume, speed or certainty India normally needs. Until the backlog clears and price pressure eases, each arriving LPG carrier will count as a temporary reprieve rather than a full breakthrough.
