“We have agreement with Iran valid till March 31, 2013. It is more or less same volume presently,” Reuters quoted the company’s Chief Executive L.K. Gupta as saying on Friday.
India is Iran’s second largest oil customer after China and purchases around $12 billion worth of Iranian crude every year, about 12 percent of its consumption.
In January, Iranian crude exports to India rose to 550,000 barrels a day, up 37.5 percent from December 2011.
On December 31, 2011, US President Barack Obama signed into law new sanctions, seeking to penalize countries importing Iran’s oil or doing transaction with Islamic Republic’s Central Bank.
European Union foreign ministers also approved sanctions against Iran on January 23, including a ban on Iranian oil imports, a freeze on the assets of the country’s Central Bank within EU states and a ban on selling diamonds, gold, and other precious metals to Tehran.
The United States, Israel and some of their allies accuse Tehran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear program and have used this pretext to push for four rounds of UN sanctions and a series of unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Iran has refuted the allegations, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful use.
YH/AZ/MA
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