Data shows that New Delhi and Beijing bought a record amount of crude oil from Russia after the western ban on buying seaborne Russian crude came into effect.
The incident happened in the Arabian Sea, approximately 300 nautical miles off the coasts of India and Oman. The oil tanker was reportedly hit by an airborne object.
According to US government data released in November last year, the country, which has long been known only as the biggest energy consumer in the world, imported only 1.1 million barrels per day of crude oil.
The Yamal-Europe Pipeline usually flows westward, but has been mostly reversed since December of 2021 as Poland turned away from buying from Russia in favour of drawing on stored gas in Germany.
The 622,000 barrel-per-day Keystone line is a critical artery shipping heavy Canadian crude from Alberta to refiners in the U.S. Midwest and the Gulf Coast.
The unprecedented unrest has further darkened the outlook for the world's second largest economy, triggering a broad selloff in commodities and particularly depressing the oil markets.