Azerbaijan, Baku, July 4 /Trend/
Indian refineries have completely paid the price of Iran's oil export and current problem is the transfer of money from Iran-India's joint account, IRNA reported quoting Managing Director of international affairs in National Iranian Oil Company Mohsen Ghamsari as saying.
"Indian refineries currently import 400 bpd from Iran and Indian refineries have high tendency to buy Iran's oil," he said.
The Indian refineries have paid for Iran's crude oil during recent months in a joint account and never refuse to pay. The recent appeared due to money transfer from the joint account.
The oil payment has been paid from ACU trading system for many years. Iran and India agreed to pay for their mutual trades through a joint account in three-month or six-month periods through their central banks. This transaction does not include oil payment, but businessmen of two countries are working on this system.
Currently the central banks of the two countries are responsible for money transfer and both are negotiating to solve the problem.
He noted in case the negotiations yield no result one of the choices suggested by National Iranian Oil Company would be halt of oil export.
The Indian refineries demand Iran to continue oil export. Iran will find new markets if it stops.
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 U.S. but not EU sanctions.
Iran is the second-largest crude supplier to India after Saudi Arabia and accounts for about 14 percent of the country's oil import bill.