Indian refiners bought around 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day (bpd) from Iran in April, marking almost a 50 percent increase over the previous fiscal year's daily average, while hitting an 'unprecedented' level in Iran’s oil exports, the country’s oil ministry announced Wednesday.
Iran’s Oil Ministry said oil exports to India during the fiscal period to March 20, 2017 stood at 450,000 bpd on average, hitting 500,000 bpd in July 2017, marking a record high.
The report published by the ministry’s official news agency, Shana, followed a recent media report that said India’s oil imports from Iran during the previous fiscal year, which ended March 20, fell 15.7 percent year-on-year.
Shana said India was Iran’s second largest crude oil customer after China, and the country, which is one of the fast-growing oil markets in Asia, did not yield to “pressure” from the U.S. to reduce its oil purchases from Iran.
Under a deal signed in 2015, the U.S. and other world powers agreed to lift some of the economic sanctions imposed against Iran in return for the latter agreeing to rein in its nuclear program.
U.S. President Donald Trump warned Iran on Tuesday that it should not attempt to re-start its nuclear program, as he threatened to potentially torpedo the 2015 agreement.
Trump has repeatedly called the pact one of the worst negotiated agreements he has ever seen, and has threatened to pull the U.S. out of it unless Washington and its European allies strike a side deal with conditions largely unrelated to the original agreement spanning Iran's regional activities and its ballistic missile program.
He and all of the U.S.' negotiating partners -- Germany, the European Union, the United Kingdom, China and Russia -- view the deal as the best way to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Iran has adamantly denied its program was intended to develop nuclear arms.
Trump has to determine, until the May 12 deadline, if he will continue to extend sanctions relief on Iran with or without the side deal he has sought from his Western allies. Should he fail to extend relief, the deal would almost certainly collapse.
By Hale Turkes
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr