India's Import of Iranian Crude May Surpass Last Year's Level - Oil Firm

New Delhi (Sputnik): Despite tightening of financial sanctions on Iran by the US, India may lift more crude oil from Iran than that of last year, a senior official of the state-owned Indian Oil Corporation said on Thursday. The official was quoted by Reuters as saying that the firm will import full volume of annual contract that stipulates purchase of 180,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian oil in the current fiscal ending March 31, 2019.  

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The statement of the official, who did not wish to be identified according to Reuters, is in line with the India's Ministry of External Affairs' stand which on November 9clarified that it was not possible for New Delhi to bring the quantum of import of Iranian crude to zero level in future as well while stressing that Iran is very important for the country's energy requirement and will remain so in future.

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During Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's visit to New Delhi in February this year, India had agreed to raise Iranian crude oil import to around 25 million tons during the current fiscal (April 2018- March 19) in comparison to 18.5 million tons in 2017-18. In 2016-17, India had imported 25.5 million tons of crude oil from Iran. Government data shows that New Delhi has already imported 15.05 million tons of crude from Iran between April and September 2018. 

In value terms, the crude import bill from Iran between April and September 2018 more than doubled to $7.74 billion from $3.84 billion in the corresponding period last fiscal.