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- By Nidhi Verma June 8 (Reuters) - India's Essar Oil, one of Iran's key Indian clients, has significantly reduced purchases from the santions-hit nation in May and switched to Latin American grades, which accounted for about a third of its...
Fri Jun 8, 2012 2:40pm IST
By Nidhi Verma June 8 (Reuters) - India's Essar Oil, one of Iran's key Indian clients, hassignificantly reduced purchases from the santions-hit nation in May and switched to LatinAmerican grades, which accounted for about a third of its overall imports during the month,tanker discharge data made available to Reuters show. Essar, which earlier this week completed an expansion of its Vadinar refinery in westernGujarat state to double capacity to 400,000 barrels per day (bpd), stepped up imports from Iranin January-March to meet last fiscal year's commitment and build stocks by July when tightersanctions come into effect, making payments, insurance and supplies more uncertain. It bought about 33,000 bpd in May, down more than 70 percent both from April and a year ago.In April its Iranian oil imports declined by about a quarter from March and 6 percent from ayear ago. Essar got nearly half its crude imports from Iran in January-May. Overall imports by Essar rose 16 percent during January-May, the data shows. The refinersignificantly raised imports from Iraq in May, to replace Iranian volumes. Essar, whose crude slate comprises mainly Middle Eastern grades, also made a rare purchaseof Venezuela's Leona 22 grade and Brazil's Jubarte oil in April-May, as the complexity of itsplant has also been increased to process heavy and ultra heavy grades. Essar imported about 127,000 bpd oil from Iran in January-May, data showed. Indian refiners cut imports from Iran by 38 percent in May from a year ago, in a secondmonth of steep reductions as they switch suppliers to cushion the impact of tighter westernsanctions on Tehran. Following are details of Essar's crude imports in April-May and since the beginning of thisyear. Volumes are in 1,000 bpd: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Region/ May April March May April %chg %chg %chg %chg Jan-May Jan-May %chg Country 2012 2012 2012 2011 2011 May/ Apr/ May/ Apr/ 2012 2011 yr/ Apr Mar May Apr yr ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bazil 23 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 5 -- -- Colombia 36 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 7 -- -- Venezuela -- 37 -- -- -- -100 -- -- -- 7 -- -- Mexico 34 -- 66 -- -- -- -100 -- -- 20 -- -- Brunei -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 4 -100 Iran 33 118 154 121 125 -72 -24 -73 -6 127 110 16 Iraq 129 66 -- 65 -- 94 -- 99 -- 65 40 65 Qatar 19 13 49 21 -- 40 -73 -12 -- 23 12 93 S Arabia -- -- -- -- 61 -- -- -- -100 4 20 -80 UAE -- 19 19 40 40 -100 -1 -100 -53 20 52 -61 Nigeria -- 30 -- -- -- -100 -- -- -- 6 6 3 Egypt -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 4 -100 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ TOTAL ALL 273 283 287 248 225 -3 -2 10 26 286 247 16 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: The total may not tally as numbers in tonnes have been rounded off after converting theminto barrels per day using a conversion factor 7.2 barrels in a tonne divided by the number ofdays. The data does not include purchase of locally produced oil, including Mangala crude froman onshore block in Rajasthan state. (Reporting By Nidhi Verma; Editing by Jo Winterbottom)
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