Indian refiner HPCL hopes to get two crude cargoes from Iran in September and does not plan to ask for extra barrels from Saudi Arabia as it clears debts with the Islamic Republic stacked up in a payments impasse, Reuters reported.
Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) has already paid $150 million and hopes to pay off an outstanding $1.014 billion by next month, B. Mukherjee, its head of finance, told reporters on Friday.
He said HPCL expects to make a payment of $45 million on Tuesday.
India, Asia's third-largest economy, and Iran, have started payments through Turkey's Halkbank after a previous mechanism was halted by the Reserve Bank of India under pressure from the U.S., which wants to isolate Iran over its nuclear ambitions.
Iran said last week it had received 1 billion euros towards the total debts of $4.8 billion for the crude shipments, which are normally 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) and make up 12 percent of India's total energy demand.
HPCL does not plan to buy extra cargoes from top exporter Saudi Arabia in September, its executive director B. K. Namdeo said, after taking an additional one million barrels from the kingdom in August, along with fellow refiners Essar and BPCL .
Saudi sources had said the kingdom was not actively trying to wrest market share from Tehran, which had opposed its push for higher output at the last OPEC meeting when prices were soaring.