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India's Iranian oil imports more than halve in June
India's imports of crude oil from Iran more than halved in June from a year ago, as refiner Essar Oil became the only remaining Indian client of the sanctions-hit country, tanker data obtained by Reuters showed.India's imports for June fell about 60 percent on an annual basis, pointing to imports from Iran's top four customers - China, Japan, India and South Korea - of around 860,000 barrels per day (bpd) for the month, down more than a third on the year. That would be the lowest for Iran's top four buyers since April, when big drop-offs in barrels shipped into India and Japan cut the total to 635,750 bpd, the smallest in decades. U.S. and European Union sanctions aimed at Iran's disputed nuclear programme are costing Tehran billions of dollars per month. And U.S. lawmakers want to toughen them further, with the goal of reducing Iran's oil shipments to 500,000 bpd or less. "The downturn year-on-year of Iranian crude imports will continue," said Praveen Kumar, who heads the South Asia oil and gas team at consultancy FGE. "Everyone was waiting for the elections (in Iran) to happen and hoping that the new president will be more open to coming back to the negotiating table ... but we don't think there is going to be a breakthrough," Kumar said. Indian imports from Iran dropped to 140,800 bpd in June, down 45 percent from May, data from trade sources on tanker arrivals shows. India's imports from Iran dropped in the first half of the year to 211,400 bpd, down more than 42 percent from the same period in 2012, according to the data. Posted by: Steve White 2013-07-24 |
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