India has substantially reduced its oil imports from Iran: FM

23 Apr 2012 Evaluate

The Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee has stated that India has substantially reduced its oil imports from Iran. FM also stated that the country is facing immense problems due to the rise in the prices of crude oil.

A day after meeting his Iranian counterpart, Mukherjee has pointed out that India's import of oil from the sanction-hit country has reduced substantially, in the backdrop of US's objections that India had failed to reduce its purchases from Tehran.

The FM has clarified that India is currently importing about 14 million tonnes of crude from Iran which in percentage terms is much lesser than earlier. When India imported 100 million tones, Iran would contribute 20-21 million tones. Now the crude oil imports have shot up to 160-170 million tonnes out of which only 14 million are sourced from Iran.

Mukherjee also observed that the country is going through significant hardship due to rising prices of oil. Noting that while presenting the budget last year the government subsidies had been worked out on the assumption that the average oil price would be $90-95 per barrel. But actually average price of has turned out to be $100-115 per barrel, increasing the quantum of subsidy substantially.

The demand for crude oil has been considerably rising in the developing countries, especially India and China. India's oil imports are expected to be more than triple from 2005 levels by 2020, rising to 5 million barrels per day. However supply is getting affected due to American sanctions on Iran. India has so far maintained that Iranian oil is important for its economy and hence it would not stop importing from war torn country. In fact India has used the opportunity to increase bilateral trade between the two countries. However, with the recent statement by the FM it seems that some of the US pressure is weighing on India.


 

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