India’s IOC Clears $510mln of Iran Oil Dues: Official
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Indian Oil Corp (IOC), the country's biggest oil firm, has settled $510 million of its outstanding oil dues to Iran, a senior official with the corporation said.
IOC Director Sanjiv Singh said the company has paid $510 million out of the total outstanding of $621 million due to Iran in past oil dues, Press Trust of India reported on Tuesday.
On May 21, the Indian government paid the first part of its outstanding oil dues to Iran in euros through Turkey's Halkbank.
However, Indian refiners later on June 9 announced that they had started to settle the rest of their debts to Iran via State Bank of India and Germany-based bank Europaeisch-Iranische Handelsbank AG (EIH).
In addition to the IOC, Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd has to pay Iran $2.8 billion. HPCL-Mittal Energy Ltd (HMEL) has to pay $97 million and Hindustan Petroleum Corp owes $29 million.
In the meantime, A K Sharma, the financial director of the IOC said, the corporation has raised crude oil import from Iran to four fold.
"We have contracted to import 5 million tons (MT) of crude oil from Iran in 2016-17, up from 1.2 MT,” he said.
India has steadily raised crude oil imports from Iran after anti-Tehran sanctions were lifted. Iran today is India's fourth biggest crude oil supplier.
Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) on July 14, 2015 reached an agreement on Tehran’s peaceful nuclear program and started implementing it on January 16.
The agreement terminated all nuclear-related sanctions imposed on Iran.
