Iran slips to 7th slot among crude oil suppliers to India

With India cutting import of oil from Iran, the Persian Gulf nation has slipped four places to become country's seventh-largest crude oil supplier in current fiscal year.

Iran, which was country's second biggest supplier of crude oil after Saudi Arabia in 2010-11, supplied 9.7 million tonnes during April-December period of current year, the Lok Sabha was informed on Friday.

The supplies from Iran were behind Saudi Arabia's 24.8 million tonnes, Iraq's 17.2 million tonnes, Venezuela's 15.1 million tonnes, Kuwait's 13.2 million tonnes and UAE's 11.4 million tonnes.

India had last fiscal year (2011-12) relegated Iran to third spot with 18.1 million tonnes of imports. These were behind 32.5 million tonnes from Saudi Arabia and 24.1 million tonnes from Iraq.

In a written reply to a question, Minister of State for Petroleum & Natural Gas Panabaaka Lakshmi said Iran had in 2009-10 supplied 21.2 million tonnes which came down to 18.5 million tonnes in 2010-11 and to 18.1 million tonnes in the year after.

It may end the fiscal year with import of about 13 million tonnes in current fiscal year.

During current fiscal year, Iranian supplies made up for 7.2 per cent of the India's oil imports, down from 10.5 per cent in the previous fiscal year (2011-12).

Our country has been since last year cutting import of crude oil from Iran after US and European nations sanctions made shipments and payments difficult.

She said  our country, which relies on import for 79 per cent of its oil needs, bought a total of 134 million tonnes of crude in April to December this fiscal year. Last year it had imported 171.7 million tonnes of crude oil, up from 163.4 million tonnes in 2010-11 and 159.2 million tonnes of 2009-10.