Baku, Azerbaijan, March 28
By Emil Ilgar - Trend:
After storing its oil in Chinese facilities for years, now Iran is negotiating with India and South Korea to lease their underground oil storage facilities.
India is likely to discuss the possibility of Iran keeping crude at its caverns in South India during oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan's visit to Tehran next month, Telegraph India reported on March 28.
The report quoted a senior oil ministry official that a part of Indian storage facilities can be used by Iran.
"The Visakhapatnam facility can store 1.33 million tons, Padur facility - 2.5 million tons and Mangalore - 1.5 million tons," said the report.
For first time, Iran announced in 2014 that it leased Chinese oil storage facilities to store 5 million barrels (or about 0.7 million tons) of its oil and gas condensate there.
Reuters also quoted the South Korean Trade Ministry as saying on March 2 that Seoul also expects to sign a memorandum of understanding with Iran to lease out oil storage in the North Asian country.
Asia's fourth-largest economy currently operates 9 oil storage facilities, capable of holding 146 million barrels (or about 20 million tons), according to Korea National Oil Corp's website.