India will have to slash Iran oil imports to meet nuke-deal conditions; US warns of low tolerance

India had imported 6.74 mn tons of oil from Iran during April-December and planned for 4.2 mn tons in the last quarter

India has to cut its Iranian oil imports by two-thirds from the first quarter after the US asked it to hold the shipments at end-2013 levels, in keeping with the nuclear deal easing sanctions on Teheran, Indian government sources said. India, with the increases already made in the January-March loading plans from Iran, has to cut its purchases to 110,000 barrels per day (bpd) to drop its intake average to 195,000 bpd for the six months to July 20.

Under the November 24 agreement between Iran and six world powers, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries member was to hold exports at "current volumes" of a million bpd, and a message delivered by a US energy policy official to Indian ministries in February was the first clear sign of low tolerance for any increases.

Since the interim deal was signed, purchases of Iranian oil by its top-four buyers, China, India, Japan and South Korea, have been creeping up and together they have taken 1.25 million barrels per day (bpd) in January against a daily average of 935,900 bpd for all of 2013.