Indian Oil Corporation Signs Contracts To Import US Equity Oil To Make Up for Half Of Lost Iranian Crude Volumes

With Iranian crude oil imports having been forced to a halt due to United States (US) sanctions, the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has jumped into action with the signing of term contracts for 4.6 million tonnes of oil imports with Equinor of Norway and Sonatrach of Algeria, each of have oil and gas fields in the US, reports The Times of India.

These term contracts signed with Equinor and Sonatrach for 2019-20 will make up for as much as half of the lost Iranian imports as the country imported 9 million tonnes of crude oil from Iran in the year 2018-19.

With this development IOC has become the first Indian oil refiner to sign contracts for US equity oil since full-fledged sanctions against buying Iranian oil came into effect.

Looking at diversifying its sources to make up for the lost volumes of the cost-effective Iranian oil, the IOC Director (finance) AK Sharma said, "We have diversified our sourcing and we have robust supply chain to make up for all the Iranian oil."