Azerbaijan, Baku, July 3/Trend/
The National Iranian Oil Company continues to export Iran's oil to India despite long delay of payment, SHANA reported quoting Managing Director of National Iranian Oil Company Ahmad Ghalebani as saying.
Ghalebani rejected news about halting Iran's oil export to India "Iran's oil export to India still continues and the issued report in some medias over halting of Iran's export oil to India is not true,"
The negotiations with India to find a solution for payment and previous debts continues, he added
Meantime, Mohsen Ghamsari the NIOC managing director in international affairs said earlier "the notification letter sent to indebt Indian refineries but the letter does not constitute the halt of oil export to India we do not intend to halt our export to Indian Market,"
The negotiation with India continues considering good relation with this country and hope to solve the problem soon, he noted.
Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd and Reliance Petroleum Limited (RPL) are major costumers of Iran's oil which failed to pay their debts due to sanction against Iran.
The Iranian media reported Saturday that the National Iranian Oil Company sent a notification letter to India's indebt refineries last week insisting "In case India is incapable of finding a solution for payment, Iran halts oil export to these refineries on August 2011,"
India is expected to pay for import of Iran's crude oil through Turkish banks by different currencies, including rupee and euro.
The tension between two countries for oil payment started in December 23 when India's Central Bank (Reserve Bank of India) placed restrictions on transactions with Iran through the Clearing House System (Asian Clearing Union) that Washington believes Tehran has been using to bypass international sanctions.
India has agreed to stop paying for its Iranian oil imports via Germany since the German chancellor Angela Merkel had intervened by instructing Germany's central bank (Deutsche Bundesbank) to stop clearing payments from India headed to the bank, known as EIH, which is under US but not EU sanctions.
Iran is the second-largest crude supplier to India after Saudi Arabia and accounts for about 14% of the country's oil import bill.