The cargo of urea — sailing aboard the bulk carrier Infinity — was sold by Aditya Birla Global Trading (Singapore) Pte., the people said. They asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the information.
Officials involved in the tender raised questions over the origins of all cargoes offered, the people said, given business with Iran continues to be limited by US sanctions.
ABGT ultimately withdrew its cargo, citing similar worries, and has offered a replacement, the people said. At least one other shipment, sold by a smaller firm, was also withdrawn, one of the people said.
New Delhi maintains cordial relations with Tehran, and has done through the current war. It also typically does not recognize unilateral sanctions. In practice, however, the government and major firms tend to be conservative when it comes to such risks.
ABGT said it never dealt with sanctioned entities or products from a blacklisted origin.
“We reiterate that we maintain a strict commitment to full compliance with all applicable sanctions and regulatory frameworks,” Shyam Zanwar, the company’s compliance officer, said by email.ABGT declined to comment further. Officials at the country’s fertilizer ministry did not respond to emailed queries from Bloomberg.
Iran is a major fertilizer supplier, but its production is closely tied to petrochemical companies, some of which are subject to US sanctions. Exports have also been hampered by the war in the Middle East, and disruption to flows through the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman.
India booked a total of 2.5 million tons of urea in the tender and the Infinity carries roughly a tenth of that, limiting the impact of forgoing a single cargo. It will nonetheless add to the strain faced by the world’s top importer of the ingredient as the war sends global prices soaring.
The per ton price agreed by India in the sale last month — widely seen as setting the global benchmark — was nearly double that of a pre-war tender.
The concern over the Infinity’s cargo stems in part from its recent movements. The carrier signaled that it was near Oman’s Sohar, a major deep-water port, in late February, before turning off its transponder for more than a month. It reappeared on April 12 in the Gulf of Oman.
Vessels in the region deploy a range of tactics to camouflage movements, for safety or to mask time spent at specific ports, especially since a US blockade on Iran-linked ships began last month. These include switching off transmissions, known as going dark, or interfering with signals.
Infinity broadcast that it stayed at the same berth in Sohar for days, before indicating that it was headed to India’s Kandla port at the end of April.
During the trip it made seemingly erratic movements — including tracing a geometric shape mid-journey, which can be an indication of signal manipulation — before reaching waters near Pakistan and India at the end of April. On May 1, it signaled that it was in that area, before appearing back in the Gulf of Oman a day later, a distance that would typically take at least two days to cover.
The ship didn’t show up on Kandla’s list of expected vessels, according to data and reports reviewed by Bloomberg News. It last broadcast Monday morning that it was fully laden and signaling Sohar as its next port of call.
The Infinity’s deadweight tonnage is about 30,000 tons, Bloomberg data shows.
Infinity’s owner, Infinity Maritime Ventures SA as seen on database Equasis, shares the same Istanbul-based address as its manager, Galaxy Shipping Ventures SA. There were no email or phone numbers listed for either company.