India’s imports of very-light grade base oils fell in November to their lowest in more than 23 months amid a slump in shipments from South Korea, Spain and Qatar.The slowdown extended a prolonged slide in shipments because of a combination of lower demand and tighter supply.The trend is likely to continue into next year.Imports of less than 120,000t of very-light-grade base oils in November fell from more than 150,000t the previous month to the lowest since at least 2020, provisional customs data showed..October was the outlier. Except for that month, imports held below the 150,000t level every month since May. Imports fell below that level twice in all of 2021.Strong demand for very light grades in 2021 coincided with an unusually large domestic retail diesel price premium to regional light-grade base oils prices.The fall in demand this year coincided with a much narrower retail diesel premium to light-grade prices.The premium would widen if diesel prices were raised or base oils prices fell further.Retail diesel prices remained unchanged since May. Crude oil prices were much higher than current levels at that time.Regional base oils prices typically bottom out at year-end or the start of the new year before rebounding.A repeat of those trends would maintain the narrow diesel premium to base oils prices.Refiners in markets like South Korea responded to the weaker demand and buyers’ lower bids by cutting run rates or redirecting very light grades back into the diesel pool.An outlier was Spain. Shipments of very light grades from the country to India almost quadrupled this year even as supplies from other sources fell.The rise in supplies coincided with unusually high Group III base oils production in Spain throughout this year.Imports from Spain then slumped in November to a 14-month low of little more than 5,000t. The lower volumes coincided with a sharp slowdown in premium-grade shipments from Spain since mid-November. .Spain’s Nov Cartagena exports fall