Media Wire

US Gives India Waiver on Oil Imports from Iran

Officials in New Delhi say the United States has agreed to grant India a waiver from Iran sanctions so that the country would be able to maintain imports of crude oil from the Islamic Republic.

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 New Delhi-based Economic Times newspaper.

The administration of US President Donald Trump 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 repeatedly rejected the feasibility of this, stressing that international consumers cannot afford to lose Iranian supplies.

India had imported about 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 firms 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 companies 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 percent of payment would be made in euro and 45 percent in rupee through India’s UCO Bank.

Under this, 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.

IFP Media Wire

Reports and views published in the Media Wire section have been retrieved from other news agencies and websites, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Iran Front Page (IFP) news website. The IFP may change the headlines of the reports in a bid to make them compatible with its own style of covering Iran News, and does not make any changes to the content. The source and URL of all reports and news stories are mentioned at the bottom of each article.

Recent Posts

US suggests Ukraine consider ceding territories: El Pais

US President-elect Donald Trump has sent a message to Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, asking him…

1 hour ago

Iranian official touts  blanket removal of internet filtering, dismisses step-by-step plan as ‘ineffective’

A member of Iran’s Supreme Council of Cyberspace has voiced his opposition to the government's…

1 hour ago

Sacked Persepolis coach Garrido bids emotional farewell

Juan Carlos Garrido, the former head coach of Persepolis, shared an emotional farewell message on…

2 hours ago

Sanctions against Syria must be lifted ‘as soon as possible’: Turkish FM

Ankara has called for the anti-Syria sanctions to be lifted "as soon as possible" as…

2 hours ago

Yemen’s Houthis claim downing US F-18 fighter jet

The Houthis in Yemen have claimed that they have successfully thwarted a joint American-British attack…

2 hours ago

Historic all-Women flight lands in Mashhad

For the first time in Iran's aviation history, a flight carrying an all-female crew and…

14 hours ago