| New Delhi: India is set to halt all crude imports from Iran because insurance companies in the country have said refineries processing the oil will no longer be covered due to Western sanctions, the head of refiner MRPL said on Friday. India is Iran's second-largest buyer, taking around a quarter of its oil exports worth around $1 billion a month.
"If cover is not available, all Indian refiners will have to halt imports from Iran or take a
huge risk," P P Upadhya, managing director of Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd, said. MRPL is India's biggest buyer of Iran crude. "Insurance companies said if I buy Iranian crude, my refinery's cover will be cancelled. If we do not get insurance for the refinery, we will stop buying Iranian crude." AGENCIES Stopping oil imports will hit Iran hard
New Delhi:Indian refiners are mulling a halt to Iran oil imports over insurance threat. It is unclear why the oil imports have become an issue now, several months after Europe and the US introduced tough sanctions aimed at Iran's oil trade to force Tehran to the negotiating table over its nuclear programme.
In a letter in January, the General Insurance Corporation of India told the General Insurance Council, an industry group, that it had "dawned" on insurers that cover and losses on processing the crude would not be payable by reinsurers due to the sanctions. A source at HPCL, a refiner that buys Iranian crude, also said imports were threatened by the insurance problems.
Oil being Iran's biggest income generator, a halt in sales to India will be a heavy blow. Sanctions more than halved the country's crude exports in 2012. In January, India imported over 286,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Iran's around 1.1 million bpd total exports. AGENCIES  |
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