India, on Tuesday, said it was “adequately prepared” to deal with the impact of the United States’ decision not to further extend waiver from sanctions related to oil purchases from Iran.
“The government will continue to work with partner nations, including with the US, to find all possible ways to protect India’s legitimate energy and economic security interests,” External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said in response to queries on Washington’s announcement to discontinue the Significant Reduction Exceptions (SREs) to all purchasers of crude oil from Iran, including India, China, Turkey, South Korea and Japan.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has assured adequate supplies of crude oil from Indian refineries. ”The Government of India has put in place a robust plan to ensure that there is adequate supply of crude oil to Indian oil refineries from May 2019 onwards. There will be additional supplies from other major oil producing countries from different parts of the world,” it added.
The ministry said, ”The Indian refineries are fully prepared without any problem to meet the national demand for petrol, diesel and other petroleum products in the country.”
Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan tweeted, “Govt. has put in place a robust plan for adequate supply of crude oil to Indian refineries. There will be additional supplies from other major oil producing countries; Indian refineries are fully prepared to meet the national demand for petrol, diesel and other petroleum products.”
Govt has put in place a robust plan for adequate supply of crude oil to Indian refineries.There will be additional supplies from other major oil producing countries;Indian refineries are fully prepared to meet the national demand for petrol,diesel & other Petroleum products
— Chowkidar Dharmendra Pradhan (@dpradhanbjp) April 23, 2019
Iran is India’s third-largest supplier of crude oil and also offers better lending terms to the country. Imports from Iran fell in 2018-2019 following the US sanctions and are currently at 20 million tonnes per annum.
New Delhi is now likely to increase its oil imports from other nations like Saudi Arabia and the UAE. India has also started to source US oil and invested in US shale gas assets.