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Iran may sell oil only to Indian Mangalore Company (UPDATE 3)

Oil&Gas Materials 1 August 2011 17:56 (UTC +04:00)
Indian Mangalore Refinery is paying its dept over Iran's oil export and despite suspending the oil export to India, Iran may continue to sell oil to this company
Iran may sell oil only to Indian Mangalore Company (UPDATE 3)

Azerbaijan , Baku, Aug. 1 / Trend D.Khatinoglu/

(Details added, the previous version was updated at 17:14)

Indian Mangalore Refinery is paying its dept over Iran's oil export and despite suspending the oil export to India, Iran may continue to sell oil to this company, Fars News Agency reported quoting an anonymous Oil Ministry's official as saying.

Iran has suspended oil export to India because of the latter's $4.8 billion debt, reported Fars News Agency quoting Iranian parliamentary energy commission member Emad Hosseini as saying on Monday.

"We held a meeting with Iranian Oil Ministry takecare Mohammad Aliabadi about Indian companies' debt for Iranian oil supplies and decided to suspend oil export to this country," he added.

Hosseini noted that India's oil debt over Iran's oil export totals $7.9 billion. Iran has received $4.8 billion maturing liability of this figure and is waiting for the rest to be repaid.

"We would keep suspending oil export until India repays the debt value completely," he underlined.

Earlier, Governor of the Central Bank of Iran, Mahmoud Bahmani, said Iran has solved the oil payment problem with India after long negotiations, Mehr News Agency reported.

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.

Despite India's debt, Iran had continued to export 400,000 barrels of oil to India daily, worth $1 billion per month.

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