Iran exports 2.5 million barrels of oil to India over last month

Baku, Azerbaijan, April 10

By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:

Indian Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has said that his country imported about 2.5 million barrels of oil from Iran in March.

At a meeting with the members of the chamber of commerce, industries and mines of Tehran, during his visit Pradhan called for the expansion of bilateral ties with Iran, Mehr news agency reported.

Saying that over the past several years, economic ties between Iran and India were restricted to the purchase of oil, the Indian minister added that the removal of sanctions against Tehran has created new opportunities for the expansion of bilateral ties.

On April 9 in Tehran, the Indian minister at a meeting with Valiollah Seif, the governor of the Central Bank of Iran pledged to settle his country's outstanding debt to Iran over the past oil purchase.

Pradhan said that Delhi will pay off the outstanding debt though banks proposed by the Central Bank of Iran, Shana news agency reported.

Delhi's outstanding debt to Iran over the past oil purchase amounts about $6.5 billion.

India's oil imports from Iran fell by about a quarter in 2015 dropping to 220,000 barrels per day as Indian refiners slowed purchases early in the year to keep imports within the limits of international sanctions against Iran, said a January Reuters report. Reuters later suggested that Indian refiners together imported 506,100 bpd oil from Iran in May.

However, earlier on April 9 after a meeting with his Indian counterpart, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said that currently India imports about 350,000 barrels of oil per day from Iran.