Global oil firm BP is learnt to have sold 650,000 barrel of Nigerian Okoro crude oil to MRPL for June 1-15 via a tender at a premium of about $5.60 a barrel to dated Brent.
MRPL has also reportedly bought 650,000 barrels of Gabon’s Rabi light sweet crude oil in a previous tender from Shell for May lifting at a premium of about $3.30 a barrel to dated Brent on a delivered basis.
The company is said to be diversifying its source of oil import as there is restriction on sourcing the fuel from the sanction-hit Iran.
Local insurance firms refuse to provide cover for plants using oil from Tehran and this discourages oil refiners from sourcing oil from the gulf nation.
According to PP Upadhya, Managing Director of MRPL, the firm, which operates a 300,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery in southern India, aims to buy 80,000 bpd of Iranian oil in 2013-14.
Indian insurers depend on European reinsurers to hedge their risk. EU and US sanctions aimed at forcing Iran to curb its disputed nuclear programme more than halved Iran’s oil exports in 2012. The West believes Tehran’s nuclear programme is aimed at making a bomb, but Iran says it is for peaceful purposes.
In April-March (2012-13), India imported 26.5 percent less of Iranian oil from the previous year.
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