No US Sanctions on India for Buying Iranian Oil: Indian Media

By
EurAsian Times Desk
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Now India will be able to purchase oil from Iran without the fear of US sanctions. The US has agreed to grant India a waiver from Iran sanctions so that the country would be able to continue buying Iranian Oil according to officials in New Delhi. The waiver would allow Indian companies to continue importing about 1.25 million tonnes of oil per month from Iran until March 2019. 

“India and the US have broadly agreed on a waiver. India will cut import by a third, which is a significant cut,” a source said, as quoted by the Economic Times newspaper.

Trump administration is preparing to launch the second wave of sanctions against Iran from November 4 in which a universal ban on the country’s oil exports appears to be a primary objective. US officials have already said the sanctions would be meant to bring down Iran’s oil exports to zero. However, Iranian officials have frequently rebuffed its feasibility emphasising that global consumers cannot afford to squander Iranian supplies.

India imported approximately 22 million tonnes of crude oil from Iran in 2017-18 and planned to raise that to about 30 million tonnes in 2018-19. But, as a condition of waiver, Indian oil companies will reduce their imports significantly, the source added.

Indian companies can import 1.25 million tonnes a month up to March 2019, the same as they ordered for October and November, the Economic Times wrote adding that an official statement on that front would be made within the next few days.

State oil firms are yet to decide on how this quantum will be split between them. A waiver will come as a big relief to Indian Oil and MRPL, the two largest Iranian oil consumers. The Economic Times added that it was still not clear how Indian firms would pay for imports of Iranian oil and that a mechanism for the same purpose was still under negotiation between Iran and India.

It added that the two countries were likely to stick to the existing mechanism under which 55% of the payment would be made in euro and 45% in rupee through India’s UCO Bank. Under this, the rupee is used for import of rice, drugs, and other products from India while the balance proceeds in rupee and euro sit idle in the Indian bank waiting for sanctions to go.

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