India Upset With Iran Over This Project, Retaliates Quickly: Report
India may cut its oil imports from Iran by as much as 25% Last year, India imported about 510,000 bpd of crude from Iran India is Iran's top oil client after China
Amid a row with Tehran over a natural gas field, India is cutting by as much as 25 per cent how much Iranian crude oil it buys, according to news agency Reuters.
India had warned that it would reduce purchases from Iran if an Indian consortium is not awarded the rights to develop Iran's huge Farzad B natural gas field.
Delhi had said that it would order four state refiners including Bharat Petroleum to cut back their business with Iran.
India is Iran's top oil client after China, and last year imported about 510,000 bpd of crude from the country, according to shipping data in Thomson Reuters Eikon.
The cuts would put India's imports of Iranian crude for this fiscal year at 370,000 barrels per day (bpd), according to the sources with knowledge of the planned deals, said Reuters.
Most of the state refiners did not respond to queries on the matter, nor did the Oil Ministry, said Reuters.
Analysts said apart from the gas-field row, India is also taking advantage of a narrow price spread between European oil benchmark Brent and Middle East price-setter Dubai crude, which makes it attractive to bring more oil from Europe into Asia.
Not all of India's refiners plan to scale back orders from Iran, though. Private refiner Reliance Industries signed its first Iranian deal in seven years to buy 30,000 bpd of heavy Forozan crude oil, one of the sources said.
India's overall crude demand is around 4.6 million bpd, third highest in the world behind the United States and China. It was one of the few countries that continued to deal with Iran despite international sanctions that were in place until 2016.
