Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Asia’s Iran oil buys start to rise after nuclear deal | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
Select Page
Media ID: 55329513
Caption:

To go with AFP Story by Adam PLOWRIGHT
(FILES) This photograph taken on January 30 2007, shows a general view of an illuminated Tata Steel plant in Jamshedpur. India’s environment ministry, run by the oil and gas minister since late December 2013, has issued approvals for projects worth USD 40 billion in the last eight weeks in a pre-election bonanza that has alarmed green campaigners, February 15, 2014. AFP PHOTO/FILES


General view of an illuminated Tata Steel plant in Jamshedpur, India, taken in January 2007. India has upped its oil buy from Iran following an easing of Western sanctions. (AFP PHOTO/FILES)

General view of an illuminated Tata Steel plant in Jamshedpur, India, taken in January 2007. India has upped its oil buy from Iran following an easing of Western sanctions. (AFP PHOTO/FILES)

Tokyo, Reuters—Asian buyers increased purchases of Iranian crude by 22 percent in January from a year ago as the grip of sanctions imposed since 2012 loosened following a landmark agreement in November to curtail Tehran’s nuclear program.

The OPEC member’s oil sales in January to its four biggest buyers topped 1 million barrels per day (bpd). Western powers had wanted to hold shipments to maintain pressure on Iran to end the disputed program.

China, India, Japan and South Korea together bought an average of 1.25 million bpd last month, government and industry data showed. They bought 1.03 million bpd in January a year ago.

Increased crude exports from Iran may cap oil prices after other OPEC producers such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq raised output to fill the gap created by the Western sanctions and outages in North Africa and the Middle East.

“Iranian exports are increasing and that means more supplies are coming into a market that is already well supplied,” said Jonathan Barratt, chief executive of commodity research firm Barratt’s Bulletin in Sydney.

“We are currently at the top end of the price range.”

The import figures confirm data from sources who track tanker movements that show Iran’s exports have been rising since the nuclear deal was struck in Geneva.

Last month, the United States and the European Union began following through on promised sanctions relief for Iran on oil exports, trade in precious metals and automotive services as the November agreement went into effect on January 20.

As part of the relief, Iran has begun to receive payments from its top buyers on 4.2 billion dollars in frozen oil receipts, with the second installment of 450 million dollars due on Saturday from South Korea.

Japan made the first payment of 550 million dollars on February 1, and India has said this week it is ready to pay 1.5 billion dollars to Iran to clear part of its backlog on oil payments.

Talks on reaching a final settlement to the decade-old dispute over Iran’s nuclear program have made a “good start,” European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said last week.

Toughened sanctions placed on Iran in 2012 more than halved its crude exports, costing it billions of dollars a month in lost oil revenue.

The West says Iran’s nuclear ambitions are aimed at making a weapon. Tehran says it only wants to develop nuclear power.

Iran’s Asian buyers

Japan, the world’s fourth-largest oil importer, purchased 210,517 bpd from Iran last month, compared with 239,085 bpd in January a year ago, trade ministry data showed on Friday.

China, Iran’s largest oil client, took 564,536 bpd of crude last month, up 82 percent from January 2013.

That jump—partly linked to data distortions as companies tend to book cargoes in advance of a week-long holiday that began on January 31 this year—brought China’s imports back to levels before Western sanctions were applied in early 2012.

China may buy more Iranian oil in 2014 as state-run trader Zhuhai Zhenrong Corp is negotiating a new condensate contract, Reuters has reported.

India’s imports from Iran more than doubled last month from December, reaching the highest since February 2012, as one state refiner returned from a three-month break as a buyer.

India’s oil purchase from Iran in January surged to 412,000 bpd, up from 189,100 bpd in December and 44 percent higher than a year ago, data compiled by Reuters showed.

The big rise last month brings India’s imports from Iran over April–January to about 201,000 bpd, still a decline of 26 percent from the same 10 months a year earlier.

That’s below India’s target of 220,000 bpd for the fiscal year that ends March 31, but if imports hold close to the January levels, earlier cuts could be wiped out.
South Korea imported about 65,000 bpd in January, a third of what the country purchased a year earlier.

China, India, Japan and South Korea together cut their purchases of Iranian crude by 15 percent in 2013 to an average of 935,862 bpd.