India Suspends Iraqi Oil Loadings Amid Hormuz Danger; Halliburton Sees NA Activity Rise

India’s biggest state-owned refiners have stopped loading crude from Iraq after a string of attacks on commercial tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, according to a report Tuesday from OilPrice.com.

Indian Oil Corp. abandoned plans to load the very large crude carrier (VLCC) Lila Jamnagar, concluding that sending a fully laden 2-million-barrel tanker through the chokepoint was no longer worth the risk, the report said, citing Bloomberg. Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals has also halted Iraqi liftings as security in the region continues to deteriorate.

India depends on imports for more than 85% of the oil it consumes, and before the Iran war roughly half of those barrels came from the Middle East, the report noted. Iraq has traditionally been one of the largest suppliers under long-term contracts that leave Indian refiners responsible for shipping. The decision to pull back accelerates India’s search for alternatives, with Russian crude flowing at near-record levels of roughly 2.45 million barrels per day this month, according to Kpler data cited by OilPrice.com.

Supplies from the UAE and Saudi Arabia have remained relatively resilient because both countries can bypass Hormuz via pipelines to Fujairah and Yanbu. Iraq has no such workaround, the report said.

The latest disruption comes as Brent crude trades back above $90 per barrel following another attack on a tanker in the Strait and a Houthi naval blockade targeting Saudi shipping in the Red Sea.

For Bakken operators, the tightening of Middle Eastern supply could support crude prices and make domestic barrels more attractive to global buyers. The price environment is already showing signs of boosting North American activity.

Halliburton Co. said it sees incremental growth in North American activity throughout 2026, according to a report Tuesday from Rigzone. The oilfield services giant’s upbeat assessment provides a counterpoint to the geopolitical risks in the Middle East and suggests operators in the Bakken may see steady demand for drilling and completion services in the second half of the year.

Elsewhere, OMV Petrom completed the installation of the offshore production platform for Neptun Deep, a Black Sea project that the company says will position Romania as the European Union’s biggest natural gas producer, Rigzone reported Tuesday. While the project is focused on gas and located outside North America, it underscores the global competition for upstream investment and the continued push to develop non-Middle Eastern supply.

The combination of Indian buyers walking away from Iraqi crude, a rising Brent benchmark, and Halliburton’s cautiously optimistic outlook for North America points to a potentially favorable operating environment for Bakken producers. Indian buyers have not yet been forced to scramble for alternative barrels, but as the report noted, “if buyers begin walking away from Iraqi oil because they can’t safely move them, another piece of Middle Eastern supply effectively becomes stranded without a single well shutting down.”