Nigeria retains spot as India’s third-biggest oil supplier

Crude oil vessel

OpeOluwani Akintayo, with agency reports

Lagos — Nigeria has for the second year retained its spot as India’s third-biggest crude oil supplier.

Nigeria takes the third position with supply of 16.83 million tonnes of exports to India in 2018-19, down from 18.11 million tonnes in the previous year, according to Refinitiv data.

The third place was formerly held by Iran, which has lost that position following economic sanctions by the US. It sold 23.9 million tonnes of crude in 2018-19, up from 22.59 million tonnes in the previous year.

Iraq has for the second year, claimed first place with  46.61 million tonnes of crude oil to India in April 2018 and March 2019, 2 percent more than 45.74 million tonnes it had supplied in 2017-18, according to data sourced from the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics. The country shipped about 1.32 million barrels per day (bpd) to India last month, about a third more than July and 29% higher than August 2018

Iraq, in the first position, is followed by Saudi Arabia, which supplied more than a fifth of India’s oil needs in 2018-19 fiscal year.

Saudi Arabia has traditionally been India’s top oil source, but it was for the first time dethroned by Iraq in 2017-18. In 2018, Saudi Arabia exported 40.33 mt oil to India, up from 36.16 mt oil sold in the previous year.
Also Read: U.S. drillers cut oil rigs for record 10 straight months -Baker Hughes

In June, Saudi Arabian offered to increase crude oil supplies to India by 200,000 barrels a day (bpd) that would meet almost half of the country’s oil imports that were coming from Iran.

India’s total imports in August were about 4.7 million bpd, same as in the year-ago month.

like us facebook