Iran slips to 7th slot among crude oil suppliers to India

With India cutting import of oil from Iran, the Persian Gulf nation has slipped four places to become India's seventh-largest crude oil supplier in current fiscal.
Iran, which was India's second biggest supplier of crude oil after Saudi Arabia in 2010-11, supplied 9.7 million tons during April-December period of current year, the Lok Sabha was informed today.
The supplies from Iran were behind Saudi Arabia's 24.8 million tons, Iraq's 17.2 million tons, Venezuela's 15.1 million tons, Kuwait's 13.2 million tons and UAE's 11.4 million tons.
India had last fiscal (2011-12) relegated Iran to third spot with 18.1 million tons of imports. These were behind 32.5 million tons from Saudi Arabia and 24.1 million tons from Iraq.

In a written reply to a question, Minister of State for Petroleum & Natural Gas Panabaaka Lakshmi said Iran had in 2009-10 supplied 21.2 million tons which came down to 18.5 million tons in 2010-11 and to 18.1 million tons in the year after.
It may end the fiscal with import of about 13 million tons in current fiscal.

During current fiscal, Iranian supplies made up for 7.2 per cent of the India's oil imports, down from 10.5 per cent in the previous fiscal (2011-12).
India has been since last year cutting import of crude oil from Iran after US and European nations sanctions made shipments and payments difficult.

She said India, which relies on import for 79 per cent of its oil needs, bought a total of 134 million tons of crude in April to December this fiscal. Last year it had imported 171.7 million tons of crude oil, up from 163.4 million tons in 2010-11 and 159.2 million tons of 2009-10.