NEW DELHI: India’s oil imports from Iran fell 34.2 percent in April from March, data from trade sources showed on Wednesday, bolstering the country’s case for the renewal of a waiver from US sanctions on Tehran due to expire next month.
The US has already granted fresh waivers to Japan and 10 European countries but has so far left out China and India, Iran’s biggest clients.
US and European Union sanctions aimed at choking the flow of oil money into Iran and forcing Tehran to negotiate curbing its controversial nuclear programme slashed its crude exports in half in 2012, costing it as much as $5 billion a month.
Indian imports dropped 56.5 percent to 117,300 barrels per day (bpd) in April from the year before, the first month of the new contract year, with Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd and Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd declining to make fresh purchases as problems emerged in getting insurance for handling cargoes from Iran.
Another exemption? Washington in December renewed 180-day waivers to all of Iran’s major crude buyers from sanctions targeted at financial institutions after they cut imports significantly.
India imported 46.3 percent less oil from Iran in January-April than a year ago, replacing it with shipments from Venezuela, Iraq and Oman, the data showed. The decline in India’s oil imports from Iran in in the first quarter is steeper than a 28.4 percent cut by South Korea and an increase of 11 percent by China.
Iran contributed 5.5 percent of all India’s oil imports in that period, compared with 11.2 percent a year ago. That meant it slipped to seventh place among India’s oil suppliers, down from No.3 a year ago.
India almost doubled imports from Latin America in the January-April period, with the region accounting for about a fifth of overall imports, up from around 11 percent a year ago. reuters
Source:-www.dailytimes.com.pk
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