(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Reporting from Singapore on Friday, July 1, 2011, Reuters and AFP quoted Indian oil industry officials as saying that the National Iranian Oil Company has warned them if India did not find a way to pay the price of the oil it has purchased from Iran over the past two years, Iran will stop sending more oil to India as of August 2011. The report prepared by Alejandro Barbajosa and Luke Pachymuthu has noted that Iran has set the deadline in a letter to Indian oil officials dated June 28, 2011. Domestic sources in Iran have confirmed the letter. One month before the letter was delivered to the Indian side, an Indian official announced that despite having problems with paying the price of Iran’s oil, India had no plan to halt oil imports from Iran. His remarks were construed by Iranian opposition media as sign of Iran’s weakness and gratis purchase of oil to India. Although no accurate figures have been given on India’s debt to Iran, informed sources have mentioned figures up to about 9 billion dollars. Last year, after the US Congress passed an anti-Iranian sanctions resolution to impose unilateral sanctions against Iran, the Indian central bank announced that it would observe those sanctions. Therefore, Indians entities have had serious problem for payment of oil price to Iran. A senior expert has told Nuclear Iran website that the Americans intend to make rapidly growing economy of India, which enjoys the highest growth rate in South Asia, heavily dependent on Saudi Arabian energy sources which are actually controlled by the United States. Thus, they will be able to impede India’s growth if the need arose. The expert added that Americans will play the Indian trump when they engage in negotiating large-scale strategic issues with China. Since China is wary of India and regional rivalry with New Delhi, India’s interests are the first chip to be bargained. Both oil supply and price will be used by Saudis as leverage to allow the United States to apply tight control to rapidly growing countries like India. He said that Chinese had been already advised to distance from Iran by getting closer to India, but being aware that dependence on Saudi Arabia will allow the United States to interrupt their long-term development plans, the Chinese officials decided against it. Parveeen Kumar, head of South Asia Oil and Gas Center, told Reuters that shifting India’s oil supplies from Iran to Saudi Arabia will be hazardous because nobody knew how long India will be supplied with the Saudi oil and at what price. India has not been able to pay for Iran’s oil since December 2009 and owes billions of dollars to the country. Iran supplies about 14 percent of India’s needed crude oil. Major companies importing oil from Iran include India’ National Oil Company, Indian Crude Oil Company, Beharat Crude Oil Company, Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemical Ltd., and Asar Oil Company. Reliance Industries also imported oil from Iran up to 2009-10, but discontinued to buy Iran’s oil at that date. Indian oil companies have purchased a total of 9.8 million tons of crude oil from Iran in six months ending September 2010. According to state figures, the companies have imported a total of 2.21 million tons of crude oil during the past fiscal year. Indian entities ceased to pay Iran when the country came under pressure from the US and the Asian Barter Union refrained from directing payments to Iran. India agreed after a few months of negotiations to pay for the oil via Hamburg-based EIH bank, which handles international trade for Iranian companies. New Delhi, however, halted that conduit in early April after discussions with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and EIH has since come under EU sanctions. Experts maintain that Iran’s recent measure has been a timely initiative because some Indian and American officials believed that Iran had problem with exporting its oil and even if India did not pay it, the country would not halt oil exports. Giving India a deadline by August will do away with such ideas and make India stop killing time and make an appropriate decision.
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