Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) has conveyed to Iran that its ship carrying crude oil from Iraq was not responsible for polluting their waters and thus, it may be allowed to sail to India.
A crude oil tanker of SCI carrying cargo from Iraq has been held by Iranian authorities on concerns that the tanker has caused pollution in Iranian waters.
SCI Chairman and Managing Director B.K. Mandal told
“We have handed over the requisite documents to Iranian authorities. We are in touch with them for sorting out the issue,” he said.
HPCL official told Business Line that “we have been informed by SCI that this was part of a routine exercise and the ship is likely to be discharged on Thursday.”
On whether the ship was insured, Mandal replied in the positive. “The ship is insured. Since this crude oil was loaded from Iraq, there are no insurance problems.” HPCL plans to import 3 million tonne from Iraq this fiscal. India has been reducing its crude oil imports from Iran after shippers started facing insurance issues for vessels importing crude oil from Iran following sanctions from the US and EU.
While Indian insurance companies are not governed by these sanctions, they depend on Western firms for the underlying reinsurance.
Indian refiners such as HPCL have stopped lifting crude oil from Iran, while Essar continues to import from Iran, though in much smaller quantity. Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL), the largest importer of Iranian crude oil, will start sourcing from the Gulf nation after a gap of almost four months.
In 2012-13, India imported 24 million tonne crude oil from Iraq, while 13.14 million tonne was imported from Iran, with Iran dropping to sixth position.
For the quarter-ended June in the current fiscal, 3.9 million tonne of crude oil was imported from Iran, pushing it to seventh position. Imports from Iraq stood at 6.73 million tonne making it the second largest importer for the period after Saudi Arabia.